There's a new patent out for Samsung featuring a smartphone with a screen that wraps around the edge and partly onto the back of the device, as discovered by LetsGoDigital.

The patent was originally filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in September of last year, but wasn't published until today.

The patent contains 10 diagrams, but doesn't say much else about the device. It certainly doesn't explain what the point of the wraparound screen would be, which only goes about halfway around the back of the phone.

At the very least you can see some app icons drawn onto the illustration of the display, some sitting right on the edge. That's gotta be hard to click on.

That's a wrap

This isn't an entirely new concept. In fact, Apple secured a patent for a phone with a wraparound display of its own last year, three years after it was granted a very similar patent in 2013. LG also won a patent for a phone with an "ornamental" wraparound screen earlier this year.

In Apple's case, though, the OLED screen used for the device wraps entirely around the whole phone. Weirdly, it's not immediately obvious where you'd put the camera on any of Apple's, Samsung's or LG's proposed devices.

Samsung in particular is known for bringing this kind of experimental technology to its phones. Long before this, for instance, there was also the Samsung Galaxy Round, which featured a curved display.

The latest patent is also not the first time that we've used the word "wraparound" in reference to a Samsung smartphone screen: that honor would go to the Galaxy Note Edge. The Galaxy Note Edge, though, wasn't a true wraparound as we see in the current patent, as the screen merely extended over the edges of the grips rather than around to the back. Samsung would also use this concept for the Galaxy S7.

One of the most memorable patents, for instance, dealt with a fordable smartphone, and there are credible rumors floating about that we may actually see the long-awaited device in the form of the so-called "Samsung Galaxy X "at CES 2018.

]]>iPhone X is full of lasers – Apple just spent a bunch of money to add morehttp://www.techradar.com/news/iphone-x-is-full-of-lasers-apple-just-spent-a-bunch-of-money-to-add-more
http://www.techradar.com/news/iphone-x-is-full-of-lasers-apple-just-spent-a-bunch-of-money-to-add-moreLasers in your current iPhone are just the beginning. Apple has invested money into an R&D facility for advanced lasers.Wed, 13 Dec 2017 21:05:27 +0000techradar.comThe iPhone X, even if you can't see it, can do nifty tricks like Animoji and Face ID all thanks to invisible lasers. Well, look for (or don't) more of that invisible magic in the future.

Apple just invested in a new, high-tech facility to be located in Sherman Texas and run by Finisar to the 'iTunes' of $390 million (about £292m, AU$512m).

This money will allow Finisar to increase R&D and high-volume production of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers already in the iPhone X and AirPods.

The iPhone X uses these advanced lasers to power the TrueDepth camera for Aminimoji, Face ID and bokeh-rich Portrait mode selfies.

AirPods take advantage of these lasers for proximity sensors, stopping and starting music every time you take out an AirPod from your ear.

Here's where Apple's statement gets interesting

Apple didn't reveal how its large investment will benefit future iPhones, AirPods or any other devices on the horizon, but it did tease new laser possibilities.

“We’re thrilled to partner with Finisar over the next several years to push the boundaries of VCSEL technology and the applications they enable,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer, in a statement today.

How will Apple and Finisar push boundaries of their already high-tech lasers? Apple seems laser-focused on augmented reality, so we're anticipating more advanced AR cameras from future iPhones or those rumored Apple AR glasses.

]]>5G spend to hit 40% by 2025http://www.techradar.com/news/5g-spend-to-hit-40-by-2025
http://www.techradar.com/news/5g-spend-to-hit-40-by-2025A slowdown in 3G and 4G revenues will precede 5G investment says report.Wed, 13 Dec 2017 16:26:54 +0000techradar.com Spending on 5G networks is set to rise dramatically in the next decade. According to new figures from SNS Research, the technology will account for 40% of network infrastructure expenditure by the end of 2025. However, this will take place against a background of reduced spending in other areas, as the mobile infrastructure undergoes organizational change.

Over the next few years, there will be a slight increase in 5G expenditure, by 2020, 5% of all network investment will be in the technology.

SNS says that, in contrast, the market for 2G, 3G and 4G wireless infrastructure is set to contract: the company estimates that revenues in the network infrastructure market will shrink by 4% in 2017, thanks to a decline in expenditure on macrocell RAN technology.

Increased revenue

However, from next year, the research company claims that there will be an increased investment in HetNet and 5G NR and there will be an annual growth rate of 2% between 2017 and 2020.

]]>Dixons Carphone to adjust business planshttp://www.techradar.com/news/dixons-carphone-to-adjust-business-plans
http://www.techradar.com/news/dixons-carphone-to-adjust-business-plansCompanies claims change in buyers' habits to prompt change in approach.Wed, 13 Dec 2017 16:19:14 +0000techradar.com
Dixons Carphone is set to overhaul its business model after a sluggish performance in its six-monthly financial report.

The company declared a fall in pre-tax profit of 60.4%, compared with the same period last year; while the drop in UK profit was even steeper, a fall from £130 million to £34 million, a hefty 74.3%.

In response, the company has decided to look at how it’s going to be selling phones. said Seb James, the company CEO. “As we said in August, the UK postpay mobile phone market is tougher, with a combination of higher handset costs and relatively incremental technology growth continuing to cause customers to hold on to their handsets for longer and some to choose a SIMO contract in the meantime.

SIMO contracts

Dixons Carphone’s story reflects what’s happening in the other parts of the UK.. According to a survey from GfK last month, customers are moving away from handset deals and opting for SIMO contracts.

James said he recognised that the business model had to change. “We recognise that the performance of the mobile division needs addressing, and are taking action to adapt our model. We will update the market on these developments in due course, but we believe that we can, over time, reduce the complexity and capital intensity of our mobile business model, and increase the simplicity and profitability of what we do.”

One of the issues that caused problems for the company was the late appearance of the Apple X, as this pushed some of the sales back into the following quarter, said James.

]]>Best iPad games: the top free and paid-for titles aroundhttp://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/50-best-ipad-games-the-greatest-free-and-paid-for-games-around-1233917
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/50-best-ipad-games-the-greatest-free-and-paid-for-games-around-1233917Whether you're into adventures, puzzle games, shooters or platformers, we've got the best games for you to play.Wed, 13 Dec 2017 15:47:00 +0000techradar.comNo-one predicted the meteoric rise of gaming on iOS, and we're not sure anyone knew what the iPad was for at all when it first appeared.

However, Apple's tablet has become a very able gaming platform. With more screen space than the iPhone, games have the means to be more immersive. The iPad's therefore a perfect platform for adventure games, strategy titles and puzzlers.

Not sure which iPad is best? We've got them listed on our best iPad ranking - or you can check out the best tablets list to see the full range available now.

But, just like the iPhone, there are so many iPad games that it's tough to unearth the gems and avoid the dross. That's our mission here - to bring you the very best iPad games, mixing traditional fare with titles that could only have appeared on a capable and modern multi-touch device.

New: A Boy and his Blob ($4.99/£4.99/AU$7.99)

A Boy and his Blob is a platform game with roots that go right back to the NES in the 1980s – although this version is based on 2009’s Wii reimagining. The backstory, though, remains the same: the titular blob flees to Earth, seeking help to topple a tyrant. One crash-landing later and he teams up with a boy.

The twist is the blob has a sort-of superpower: on snarfing a jellybean, he can transform. You get several abilities per level, which include parachutes to slow the boy’s fall, anvils to unsportingly drop on enemies, and the blob turning into a massive stompy robot.

Sometimes, the game’s console roots are a bit too clear – the controls don’t quite gel on the touchscreen, the visuals are a tad pixelated, and it can all be a bit fiddly. But mostly this is a sweet-natured and entertaining adventure that’s a bit different from anything else on iPad.

Fluid SE appears to have arrived from the unholy union of Pac-Man and a brutally difficult time-trial racer set in a hostile underwater world of black fish and deadly red ghosts.

Each test has you zoom about, scooping up dots, and attempting to beat time targets. If you’re fast enough, you get the stars needed to unlock new levels; if not, you’ll need to work on shaving fractions of a second off of your best times.

The snag is levels rapidly increase in complexity, and dots you eat spawn the aforementioned ghosts, which relentlessly chase you around the screen. There are ways of dealing with them, but often that involves slowing down.

Fluid SE therefore becomes a thrilling game of risk versus reward, where everything plays out at breakneck speed – right up until you’re devoured by an angry ghost.

Flower is a game that revels in bombing along as a petal on the wind, scything your way through fields of lush grassland, and soaring into the air above mountains and windmills.

Each environment starts with you playing as an individual petal. As you collide with other flowers, they bloom and offer a petal of their own to join yours, which soon becomes a spinning, swooping conga of color, wheeling above Flower’s tiny, beautiful worlds.

There’s a smattering of exploration and light puzzling in Flower, primarily to unlock more parts of each level, and discover secrets. But mostly this game is about enjoying an immediate, accessible, beautiful journey that has an emotional core and an exhilarating edge.

PUSH comes across a bit like a set of logic tests plonked in front of you by aliens aboard a minimalist UFO. Each of the game’s challenges takes the form of a small device that hovers before you. Each of these devices has a number of buttons, and some have other features, too, such as the ability to rotate when a glowing pink button is prodded.

Every puzzle’s objective is identical: all of the buttons must be pushed. The trick is in figuring out precisely how this is achieved. It’s hardly a spoiler to note that in the earliest levels, you’re mostly finding pairs.

But later on, the game’s sense of logic becomes a mite more complex as it develops a playfulness that nicely contrasts with the rigid visual forms of the puzzles themselves.

FROST is a thoughtful, tactile game that feels like a living piece of art. Across dozens of scenes, sparks and barriers scythe across the screen while you direct flocking neon creatures towards orbs. Once the orbs fill, you can move on to the next challenge.

Ultimately, FROST is a path-finding puzzler. You use logic to understand the conditions before you, and how to meet your goal. But FROST feels very different from its contemporaries. The abstract visuals are exciting and fresh, but also it really wants you to play, experiment and discover.

Most of the puzzles tend to be simple, and you could probably blaze through the entire game in a few hours. But doing so would miss the point, because FROST is an iPad experience to bask in and savor.

cityglitch is a puzzle game set in a world of haunted cities. These are ‘glitching out’, and need the powers of a flying witch. She scoots about, avoiding spooks and skittering things, and lighting the runes that release the glitch.

This all plays out in turn-based fashion on a five-by-five grid. Success in solving any given puzzle often depends on figuring out how obstacles and foes behave, and countering their effects by moving appropriately. An optional moves indicator helps – it’s especially handy when you realize you’ve made 47 moves on a puzzle that’s beatable in five.

Given the diminutive size of the play area and its overtly old-school CRT stylings, you’d think cityglitch an ideal iPhone game. But somehow it works better on iPad, with a fantastic mix of bold, brash visuals, tactile puzzling, and the way it regularly shakes up the complexity of the challenges you face.

Freeways explores interchange design for autonomous vehicles, which sounds deathly dull. It isn’t. Just as Mini Metro coaxed something gorgeous and essential from underground railway maps, so too does Freeways create a hugely entertaining game from the drudgery of urban planning.

Each map sector provides you with highways that must be connected to each other. Hold a sign and you get an idea of traffic flow and the links you must make. You then scribble roads down, adding overpasses and increasingly complex routes when the realization dawns about how tough this task can be.

The drawing tools and visuals are crude, and there’s no undo – mess up and you must start that particular section of the map from scratch. But the underlying gameplay is enthralling, not least when you tap ‘simulate’ to watch your layout’s traffic move in fast forward, hoping to avoid a dreaded traffic jam.

Active Soccer 2 DX is a love letter to classic soccer videogames. Eschewing photo-realism and semi-scripted canned goals, this one’s all about pitting the dexterity of your thumbs against a tough computer AI, with tiny players darting about a massive pitch.

At first, it can feel a bit like pinball, as you’re mercilessly thrashed again and again. But spend time mastering the controls and tweaking the setup to your liking (there are several viewpoints, for example), and there’s a lot to like here.

You can play quick one-off games, or immerse yourself in an expansive career mode. And while it all feels a bit rough and ready compared to the games playing in the big leagues, it’s an awful lot more fun on iPad than mobile takes on FIFA or PES, providing a lovely level of replay-ability even after multiple sessions.

Space Junk is what happens when someone rethinks classic arcade blaster Asteroids and goes all-out, souping it up for the iPad. The basics remain: you’re floating in space, blowing everything around you to smithereens. Big things, when blasted, split into smaller things. UFOs take occasional pot-shots. Anything that hits you kills you.

But everything’s handled with such grace and good humor that you can’t help but be enthralled. The controls – despite being dreaded virtual buttons – work nicely, aided by subtle inertia on your little spaceman.

For those who prefer precision over random blasting, there’s a bonus for careful shots. And even the varied level names and themes raise a smile, such as ‘So Long, Space Shuttle’ (blowing NASA’s finest to bits) and ‘Victorians Got Here’, with its steampunk space stations.

Neo Angle is an engaging puzzle game set in a minimal world of neon grids suspended in space. The aim is to reach a goal, but because you’re moving a triangle, the pivot point shifts depending on the direction you’re moving in.

At first, this makes little odds – early challenges are essentially tutorials to help you understand the basics. But the game then lobs fuel cells, switches, and gates into the mix – along with a twist that when you reach a milestone, you can’t backtrack.

Because you also can’t cross tiles you’ve already trundled over, Neo Angle quickly shifts from casual noodly puzzler to brain-teaser. You’ll end up staring at the screen, several restarts later, swearing blind you can’t thread your way around a particular level peppered with teleporters and switches. As ever, it’s all about finding the right angle.

Standby is a brutally tough yet rewarding platform game. Your little hero darts about angular levels, sliding along while shooting doors, and bounding about like a hyperactive flea.

You’ll die many times before reaching your goal, and then learn the entire successful journey took a mere handful of seconds. To add insult to injury, the game will point out even that was way beyond the target.

This one’s an ego-checker, then, and just – barely – on the right side of the maddeningly frustrating/‘one more go’ divide.

Mostly, it’s the breakneck pace combined with short levels that make Standby ideal fodder for picking up at any point, to take another crack at a level that’s killed you dozens of times already. But it also looks and sounds great, and boasts smart, finger-twisting level design.

An iPad’s a must, too – given the split-second timing required, Standby really isn’t a game to be squinting at on a tiny screen.

Motorsport Manager Mobile 2 is a racing management game without boring bits. Whereas many management simulations tend to be glorified spreadsheets, this game gives you just enough control, before hurling you into the action – surprisingly tense and exciting top-down races. (This being surprising because you’re essentially watching numbered discs scoot about circuits.)

You can get a feel for how things work in one-off races, where you fiddle with car set-ups during qualifying, and then strategize regarding pit-stops and tyre types in the main race. But the meat of the game is a full-on championship, where you’re juggling cars and drivers, sponsors and money, and sporadic problems that crop up.

Like the cars it features, Motorsport Manager Mobile 2 is streamlined and slick. There’s admittedly not too much depth, but if you fancy delving into an accessible, immediately rewarding management sim, this game takes the checkered flag.

Reckless Racing HD is a top-down racer that first graced the App Store way back in 2012. It’s different from its contemporaries in having you coax battered vehicles around ramshackle tracks.

There’s no slick tarmac – bar a mall parking lot that forms part of a course. More often, you’re zooming about the likes of a wrecker’s yard, or dirt roads near an old church that rises majestically out of the screen like it’s about to poke you in the eye.

Given a 64-bit reprieve in mid-2017, Reckless Racing HD is a fantastic blast from the past. The cars have a great sense of weight – the physics when racing is just about perfect. And although it now looks a bit rough and ready, it’s decidedly more reckless (and fun) than its overly polished sequel, and includes the online multiplayer that the most recent entry in the series lacks.

Osmos for iPad is an ‘ambient’ arcade game, and although it started life on PC, it’s a game that only really makes sense on a touchscreen.

Across eight distinct worlds, you control a tiny ‘mote’, propelled by ejecting pieces of itself, its direction of travel determined by your taps. Collide with a smaller mote and it’s absorbed. Your aim is to ‘become the biggest’.

When other motes are stationary, victory’s relatively easy – although very crowded levels require careful taps and judicious use of a time-warp slow-down feature.

But when levels feature ferocious motes intent on your demise, or the game shifts from microscopic warfare to motes speeding around a central giant – like celestial bodies orbiting a sun – brains and fingers alike will suddenly find Osmos a much sterner test.

At every point in the journey, Osmos is magnificent. Convince a friend to buy the game and engaging multiplayer arenas await too.

But Mos Speedrun turns out to be one of the finest games of its kind on iPad.

First, the level design is really smart, forcing you to learn the precise position of every platform, gap, and enemy, if you want to beat the speed-run target. Secondly, each level has alternate targets – finding a hidden skull, and collecting all the loot – that boost replay value, but also force you to shake up your approach.

Finally, Mos Speedrun amusingly subverts the idea of ‘ghost’ replays. Die a lot and you end up battling your way through a level alongside the spirits of the fallen from your previous failures. It’s bonkers – and humbling – when dozens of the things are skittering about.

Fowlst is a high-octane two-thumb arcade game featuring an owl cast into hell. Quite what the owl did to deserve such a fate, we’ve no idea (and the game’s not telling), but the result is a deliriously ridiculous and frenetic smash ’em up.

You control the damned bird by tapping the left or right of the screen. Each tap has the bird perform a brief upwards thrust, before gravity does its thing. Your aim: smash into angry red demons, avoiding both their projectiles, and also local hazards (deadly saw blades; speed-sapping water).

Defeat all demons in one room, and you can move on to the next – while hoping it won’t house a gigantic owl-killing boss.

A special power button is annoyingly placed at the top-right of the screen, but otherwise this game feels well suited to iPad, because your thumbs don’t cover the action. And, believe us, there’s a lot of action to be had here – and an awful lot of owl death. Turns out it’s not easy to survive in hell.

Kalimba is an inventive and compelling platform game for people bored with controlling just one character at once. Here, you help two colored totem pieces avoid deadly pits and roaming enemies – and you control both simultaneously.

Initially, you’re eased in by way of a split-screen set-up where the totems don’t meet. At all times, you must be mindful that when one totem’s on safe ground, the other may be seconds from doom. And then the game really starts shaking things up.

You’re soon faced with color barriers that force you to repeatedly swap the totems around, the prospect of ‘stacking’ and double-jumping to reach gems, gravity flipping, totems that fly through the air while their partners very much don’t, and chase sequences featuring massive, terrifying bosses.

If it’s all a bit much alone, there’s a superb two-player single-device mode – although how much actual co-operation there’ll be when you’re juggling four totems and your friend hurls you into a lava pit, it’s hard to say.

Mobile gaming’s early days featured all manner of straightforward shooters that had you desperately fending off hordes of aggressors coming from above. No Stick Shooter recalls Space Invaders, in enemies heading downwards towards your defenses, but also Missile Command, in that your weapon’s rooted to the spot, and success depends on precision shooting.

However, unlike those games, No Stick Shooter is a resolutely modern affair. On selecting a weapon, shots are unleashed by tapping the display. For a very brief period, this is quite a leisurely process, picking off asteroids.

But the game soon bares its teeth, flinging all manner of neon foes your way, which must be defeated by deft fingerwork and tactical weapon selection, including crackling lightning and gigantic red laser beams.

On an iPhone this is a terrible game because it’s too fiddly; but on an iPad, No Stick Shooter is a wonderful, vibrant, thrilling shoot ’em up that’s not to be missed.

The iPad’s no stranger to multiplayer gaming, but more often than not, modern multiplayer happens online. The idea with Bloop is not only to get several participants in the same room, but also crowded round a single device, and then – horrors – invading each other’s personal space.

The game itself is extremely simple. Up to four players select a color, and they then seek out and tap ‘their’ squares as quickly as they can. Across several rounds, the squares gradually get smaller, and the tapping gets more frenzied, with hand collisions aplenty. At the end of the game, Bloop tots up the score and that’s your lot.

It’s simple, but that’s the point - Bloop is a game anyone can learn in seconds. But its straightforward nature combined with bold colors and retro sound effects makes for a fast-paced and amusing party game.

Steredenn is an endless horizontal shooter, infused with the beating heart of the best retro blasters around, topped off with a head-nodding guitar-laden soundtrack.

Unlike most games of its ilk, it works brilliantly on iPad. The responsive controls have you drag the left of the screen to move your ship, and tap the right to fire at incoming waves of enemies. A flick of your right thumb switches weapons, and if your ship darts beneath a digit, crosshairs pinpoint its position.

And you’ll need that knowledge at all times, because enemies come thick and fast in all their chunky-pixel glory. But so too do power-ups – and learning the effectiveness of weapons against specific opponents boosts your long(er)-term survival.

It takes quite a lot to make a solitaire game tense, but Card Thief manages, mostly by smashing dealing out cards into turn-based stealth-oriented puzzling.

As the titular villain, you map out pathways across the cards on the screen, figuring out how to grab loot without losing too many stealth points, which are depleted on battling adversaries.

Repeat play is rewarded by improving your strategies, unlocking new kit to help increase your score, and eventually finding your way to new missions with different foes.

Like any take on solitaire, Card Thief does get a bit repetitive, but this is also a game you’ll be able to happily play a round of a day for many weeks, gradually improving your ability to sneak about and become a master pickpocket.

Online multiplayer is increasingly commonplace, whether battling a live opponent, or playing against a recorded ‘ghost’ lurking in the system. But Mucho Party reasons it’s a lot of fun to play a game against someone in the same room as you – and in this case, on the same device.

After setting things up with a few mug-shots (which then appear within your on-screen avatar), you partake in a randomized selection of mini-games. These range from fairly typical sports efforts, such as hurdles, to wackier battles where you must rapidly silence a pile of blaring cellphones.

It all comes across like a colorful multiplayer take on WarioWare, and is a perfect fit for iPad - at least if you pay the IAP to unlock all 44 games rather than being stuck with the miserly 5 you get for free.

This fast-paced platform game is brutal and brilliant. Your little pixelated hero auto-runs through vibrantly colored environments, which you must learn how to traverse by way of jump and action buttons.

The difficulty level recalls the sadistic beating hearts of Super Hexagon and RunGunJumpGun, but Miles & Kilo’s charm is such you’ll keep returning for more, even as the game constantly showcases your lack of gaming prowess.

Much of this is down to the sheer variety on offer. This is a game that never sits still, whether having you leap about colorful islands, careen along in a minecart, perform Sonic-style targeted attacks, or hold onto your dog’s lead as he belts after a fleeing cat.

But also, each level is brief - just 30 seconds long. You therefore always think you’re within spitting distance of the finish line, even when that line may take dozens of attempts to reach.

If you’ve played a game based on just clicking before, you’ll be aware they’re barely games. You click (or tap) away, earning points to spend on upgrades that automatically click on your behalf – until you end up with an absurd number of clicks per second, to pay for yet more upgrades.

Through minimal imagery, a gorgeous soundtrack, and quite a lot of madness, Spaceplan just about manages to subvert the genre and become something different... something better.

Really, Spaceplan is a semi-interactive story; the clicker bit’s an excuse to string things out for pacing purposes. To say too much would spoil things, but it involves a planet, a “total misunderstanding of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time”, and quite a lot of technology powered by potatoes.

It also has an ending. Have it run on your screen over a few days for a rewarding - if brief - take on a gaming genre that’s usually entirely forgettable.

Monument Valley 2 echoes its predecessor in having you explore isometric Escher-like worlds packed full of optical illusions. The aim in each level is to reach a goal, which is often achieved by manipulating the landscape, creating pathways that in the real world simply could not exist.

It’s a visually stunning game, with tiny levels crammed with vibrancy and details, making it ideal for the iPad’s larger display. The narrative featuring a mother and daughter also satisfies, but is careful to leave the experience with a sense of mystery. The levels are diverse in feel, demands, and structure.

If there’s any downside it’s that Monument Valley 2 is short and largely bereft of challenge. But treat it as a couple of hours immersed in a unique and beautiful universe and you’ll find it’s well worth the outlay.

It says something about Euclidean Lands that it feels like a proper turn-based quest, despite taking place on the faces of minimal cubes suspended in space.

You must plan ahead, responding to enemy movements and the squares they defend. Carefully position yourself to bump them off, much like in Hitman GO. Rinse and repeat.

Only here, the entire game world shifts and changes as you rearrange the landscape, as if it were a giant Rubik’s Cube. Also, the puzzles are frequently deviously clever, and they vary throughout the game’s five chapters.

No sooner do you think you’ve got the game sussed than it hurls another brain-twister your way, or shakes things up with a boss battle where you no longer have control over the cube.

The game’s sheer quality is also evident when you consider that although it riffs off of Hitman GO and Monument Valley, it doesn’t come off as a pastiche; at the very least, Euclidean Lands is the equal to either of those classic titles. Buy it.

Zombies have taken over the USA, and so it’s road trip time in Death Road to Canada, the aim being to flee to the safety of the land of the moose. The tiny snag: the aforementioned zombies, and the fact you start out in Florida.

The game itself is an action-oriented role-playing title, switching between top-down shooting/scavenging scenes, choose-your-own-adventure text sections, and claustrophobic and downright terrifying sieges that lock you for a set time in a confined space with hundreds of the undead.

Actually, it’s not that terrifying, given that Death Road to Canada looks like a game from the 1990s. But it is excellent fun, despite some slightly slippy virtual controls. (If you’ve an Made for iPhone controller, use that to boost your zombie-killing prowess.)

In the inky blackness of space, humans have started mining massive space rocks, and it turns out aliens have a big problem with that.

Enter: the hero of Darkside, who has to blow up said aliens and, for some reason, all the rocks the humans are supposed to be mining. Videogame logic!

It all comes across like someone gleefully mashed together two classic arcade titles – Asteroids (shoot rocks until they’re tiny enough to obliterate) and Robotron (the original twin-stick shooter) – and wrapped the result around beautifully rendered planetoids.

Although there’s a free version, splash out for the paid release and you get smart bombs in the arcade mode, and two extra modes to try: one being mission-based, and the other being a tough endless mode for cocky veterans.

The end result is tons of shooty fun that’s accessible enough for newcomers, but that provides a stern test for even the swiftest of trigger fingers.

The notion of mashing up golf with a side-on platform game might seem odd. But with Golf Zero, the end result is positively psychotic, given that the platforming bit echoes super-tricky twitch titles like Super Meat Boy.

Each side-on course finds you majestically leaping about tiny islands, trying hard to not end up in the water or impaled on a spike. On finding the hole, you smack your balls in its general direction, hoping for the best.

Mercifully, it goes all slo-mo – Matrix-style – when you’ve got your club out. Even so, success can be elusive, and you’ll likely keep hitting restart in a frenzied manner until you nail a hole.

At least that’s the case if you pay the one-off IAP to nuke the ads, which derail momentum in what’s otherwise a compelling and fun – if sometimes murderously challenging – slice of arcade craziness.

In The Big Journey, rotund cat Mr. Whiskers is on a mission to locate the maker of the dumplings he loves to scoff. His journey takes place across colorful landscapes packed with hills and tunnels to traverse, bugs to munch, hostile critters to avoid, and dumplings that make him instantly fatter.

The game plays out as a sort-of platformer. It brings to mind lost iOS classic Rolando and PSP hit LocoRoco, in utilizing a tilt-based mechanic to make the protagonist move, and then prodding the touchscreen to make him leap into the air.

But The Big Journey is a comparatively sedate affair compared to many of its contemporaries – a pleasant title that encourages exploration and drinking in its visuals rather than a breakneck dash to the finish line.

It turns out the way to make sliding puzzles interesting again is to combine them with 1980s horror flicks – and then combine that with chunky Crossy Road-style visuals.

In Slayaway Camp, then, the mechanics are familiar: swipe to make your character slide until it hits something; repeat (tactically) to hit several targets and then finally reach a goal. But the way everything’s portrayed is decidedly oddball, with lashings of chunky retro gore.

The combination of ‘twisted’ and ‘oddly adorable’ provides a great hook, but it’s the puzzles that keep you playing. Well, unless you get a bit too much into the blood-curdling screams – in which case, please seek help.

Many path-finding puzzlers have you use arrow tiles to direct auto-running critters to goals. (Long-time gamers may fondly remember ChuChu Rocket! as a shining example).

Causality is in similar territory, only you also get to control time itself, by dragging up and down the screen.

Early on, this primarily allows you to fix errors – going back to try again when a sprinting astronaut is eaten, or when you run out of your limited number of steps. Before long, though, you’re hurling people through time portals, so they can assist their past selves.

It’s mind-bending stuff, but also one of the finest puzzle games of modern times. It’s also perfect for iPad, due to its visually dazzling and tactile nature.

Evergrow is one of those rare titles that can only really work on the iPad. It stars a grinning square floating in space whose only goal in life is to grow. In the void, other squares lurk. Like-colored ones can be attached; collisions with wrong-colored ones cause damage. Grow enough and you head to the next level.

When things get hectic, multi-touch allows you to manage several squares simultaneously. But the game’s well-suited to the iPad in other areas, too: the large display is ideal for interaction, and the squarish aspect ratio allows you to see incoming hazards more easily than on a widescreen iPhone.

It’s a simple idea, well-executed. And what might have been a gimmicky game has plenty of staying power, too, since Evernote regularly lobs new ideas, weapons and foes into the mix.

There’s something gleefully classic about SpellTower. It marries very old-school word games – in the sense of paper-based crosswords and word searches – with much-loved arcade puzzlers. The result is the best word game on iOS.

Tower mode has you face a stack of letters, tapping out snaking words that disappear when submitted, the tiles above then falling into the gaps. A keen sense of planning is required to balance letter stacks and ensure tiles aren’t left stranded.

Additional modes soon open up: Puzzle adds a new row of letters for every word you submit; Rush throws in a timer; and Debate pits two players against each other. iPad Pro owners also get Super Tower mode, offering a colossal 432 tiles and the potential for blockbuster scores – if you can find the right words lurking within the jumble.

Described by its creator as a literary RPG, Voyageur mixes text adventure with space trading. Imagine seminal classic Elite combined with Lifeline and you’re on the right track.

The story begins with you having bolted an alien ‘Descent Device’ to your ship, enabling faster-than-light travel – but only towards the center of the galaxy. You embark on a one-way journey, stopping off on planets to trade, explore, and become embroiled in side quests.

With the game being text-oriented and algorithmically generated, descriptions and events tend to repeat quite often. Still, if you at any point feel you’ve seen a planet before, you can leave with a few taps – and there are always new things waiting to be found. For anyone armed with an imagination, Voyageur becomes a unique, captivating experience.

Hidden object games are often dull and can be heavy on the pocket, demanding you spend lots of money on IAP. Hidden Folks isn’t either of those things, and has the added bonus of being hugely charming.

You’re presented with hand-drawn scenes, each of which has a strip across the bottom, depicting objects to find. You can tap any of them for a clue, but the scene can also be interacted with, for example to rustle bushes to find someone lurking behind them.

Cute mouth-originated sound effects pepper proceedings, and the pace is varied with differing map sizes, and the odd playable scene, such as helping someone to a destination by adjusting the landscape.

Thus, with its wit and smarts, Hidden Folks very much stands out from the crowd – unlike some of the tiny critters it tasks you with locating.

The basic mechanics of Splitter Critters resemble 1990s arcade puzzler Lemmings, in that you guide marching creatures to a goal. But whereas you armed lemmings with tools, Splitter Critters has you slice up the screen with a finger, so you can adjust the landscape to create new pathways.

This is clever, but Splitter Critters isn’t done. The undo button reverts your last cut, but not the position of critters. Undo therefore becomes a device vital for completing levels, rather than merely a means of reverting errors.

Throughout its length, the game keeps adding new elements, such as ocean worlds and a grim underground base full of critter-frying lasers. And although the challenge never rises above slight, the charm and tactile nature of Splitter Critters makes it a joyful journey, especially on the iPad’s larger display.

Twisted Lines is another great iOS puzzler with simple rules, but also level design seemingly created to drive you to despair. Each of the 100 levels involves you directing a little colored block that leaves a trail of two colors, but should you cross over the trail, your block changes color to match the first line it hits.

This is pretty important, given that your task is to scoop up colored blocks littered about claustrophobic, deviously designed single-screen puzzles. From the start, Twisted Lines is a pleasingly tricky challenge, and it keeps adding further complications – trail erasers; teleporters – to keep you on your toes.

If there’s any drawback to the game, it’s the strict linear unlock of levels (presumably, this is designed to urge you to grab hint IAPs if you get stuck). But other than that niggle, Twisted Lines is a brain-teaser among the very best on iPad.

Although there’s a hint of Limbo about the silhouette-heavy imagery in Yuri, this is a much sunnier – and speedier – affair. An exploration-oriented platform game, Yuri finds the titular protagonist belting about on a skateboard-like bed.

Visually, the game resembles a living papercraft project, with cut-out creatures milling about, and subtle textures providing depth, but it’s the feel of the game that draws you in.

This is a world where every nook and cranny begs to be scrutinized and, because you get endless lives, there’s little frustration when you zoom along at Sonic speeds and suddenly find yourself at the bottom of a ravine. You can just try again – perhaps knocking back the speed a touch.

Old-hands might gripe Yuri is a bit simplistic and shallow, because there’s little to do beyond exploration. But then that’s the point, and so if you fancy delving into an interesting arty world on your iPad, Yuri’s a good bet.

This old-school adventure game is all the more impressive when you realize it’s the work of one man. From the delicate pixel art to the smart story – all delivered in rhyme – you’d think a team of clever people had beavered away on Milkmaid of the Milky Way rather than a sole individual.

The star of the show is Ruth. Her tools have vanished in a storm, and she needs to make cheese and butter to sell. It’s all very slow and relaxing – until a spaceship abruptly shows up and rudely steals her cows, propelling her into a rather more out-of-this-world experience.

If you’ve played this kind of game before, you’ll know what to expect – explore your surroundings, find objects, and figure out where to use them.

But the difficulty curve is gentle enough to snare newcomers, while the feel and polish of the game should help it appeal to anyone who spent years taking on Lucasfilm fare on a PC.

There are games that scream for attention and then there are creations like Klocki. This somewhat minimal puzzler is as relaxed as they come, with its lack of a time limit and serene soundtrack that bubbles away as you play. The tasks also – initially at least – border on the meditative, early puzzles being very simple to complete.

The basic aim is to fashion complete lines, which is achieved by manipulating tiles on the surfaces of 3D shapes. At first, this is just a case of swapping a few tiles around, but later levels become quite devious in adding new ideas and challenges to trip you up.

Even so, Klocki never becomes frustrating. This is a no-stress puzzler, ideal for winding down rather than being a game that will wind you up. But even if you typically prefer tougher fare, give Klocki a go, because its tiny isometric worlds prove rewarding and mesmerizing in equal measure.

You might balk at Pac-Man appearing in a best-of list for iPad games, but this isn’t your father’s arcade game. Sure, the basics remain: scoot about a maze, eating dots, avoiding ghosts, and turning the tables on them on eating a power pill. But Pac-Man Championship Edition DX is significantly faster, has neon-clad mazes and a thumping soundtrack, and the gameplay’s evolved in key areas.

First, the maze is split in two. Clear one side and a special object appears on the other, which refills the cleared side when eaten. Secondly, snoozing ghosts can be brushed past to fashion a spectral conga to shepherd, contain, and not blunder into – until you eat a power pill, reverse course, and eat your pursuers to amass huge points.

In short, this game is superb, transforming an ancient classic into something fresh and exciting. And importantly, it works best on the large iPad display, because your fingers don’t get in the way of your frenetic dot-gobbling.

In the future, it turns out people have tired of racers zooming about circuits on the ground. In AG Drive, tracks soar into the air – akin to massive roller-coasters along which daredevil racers of the day speed, gunning for the checkered flag.

This is a pure racing game – all about learning the twists and turns of every circuit, and the thrill of breakneck speed. The only weapons you have available are strategy and skill. And this suits the kind of stripped-back controls that work best on iPad – tilting to steer, and using thumbs to accelerate, brake, and trigger a turbo.

Also, while some slightly irksome IAP lurks, there’s little need to splash out. The game’s difficulty curve is such that you can gradually improve your skills and ship, working your way through varied events until you become an out-of-this-world racing legend. (Or, if you’re a bit rubbish, an ugly stain on the side of a massive metal building.)

Most city building games are about micro-management – juggling budgets, people’s demands, and limited space. But Concrete Jungle rethinks the genre as a brilliant brain-bending puzzler. And here, restrictions regarding where you can build are of paramount importance.

At any point, you have seven rows with six lots where you can place a building. Said buildings are served semi-randomly from a card deck. Each column needs to have enough housing points for it to vanish and unlock more space on which to build. The snag: other buildings boost or reduce the points allocated to adjacent lots.

You must therefore take great care to place your factories (bad) and parks (good), realizing that any complacency may be severely punished several moves down the line, when you suddenly find yourself faced with a slum of your own making.

Treasure Buster comes from the Angry Birds school of game design – at least in terms of its insanely simple controls. You drag back on a little dungeoneer, who upon release bounces about the screen, scooping up loot and smashing into enemies. Clear a room and you venture further into the dungeon, unearthing new adversaries that try to kill you in excitingly varied ways.

Chances are your tactics won’t vary a great deal – these kinds of titles (which take influence from Japanese pachinko, a style of mechanical arcade game) often devolve into firing at maximum strength and hoping for the best.

But there is at least some nuance here, in locating or buying new powers, and defeating bosses by way of amazing pool-like rebound shots.

And at any rate, Treasure Hunter looks superb on the iPad screen, with an immediacy and energy that’s compelling enough to counter any lack of depth.

Although it's almost 13 years old, Rome: Total War is one of the best games of 2017 thanks to its re-release on iPad.

You can now rule an empire from your Apple slate in this strategy game that defined the genre. You start the game as one of six factions, aiming to throttle enemies and conquer the known world. This historical simulator will force you to wield your tactical brain, as well as demonstrating your diplomatic and fighting skills.

You may not think this complicated battle simulator would work on iPad, but Feral Interactive have reworked the game enough that it works brilliantly with a touchscreen. You’ll want a larger iPad to play this though, as you’ll need to do a lot of reading within the menus.

But if you have a sizeable slate this is essential, and the Barbarian Invasion expansion is coming to iPad very soon as well, so there's a lot of life in this game.

It’s ‘maniacally yet methodically skidding through dirt tracks time’ in Go Rally, an overhead arcade-oriented take on zooming along like a lunatic, against the clock.

Aside from some nicely rendered courses, Go Rally’s a winner through its controls, solid physics, and relatively short tracks. Playing doesn’t feel like an ordeal to be overcome – instead, the brevity of the courses makes Go Rally akin to a Trials title, where you can conceivably master every turn.

The career mode eases you in gently, gradually unlocking access to new cars and tougher races. And if you get fed up with what the game throws at you, it’s even possible to scribble on your iPad’s screen to fashion new tracks of your own. The tracks of your dreams – and everyone else’s nightmares – can then be inflicted on the world at large.

Coming across like the mutant offspring of ALONE… and Jetpack Joyride, RunGunJumpGun is a murderously difficult yet gripping auto runner/shooter.

You blast your way through 120 levels set across three unique worlds, but even endless ammunition and lives don’t help, because every level is packed full of spikes, projectiles and massive saw blades – plus, the protagonist is a massive idiot.

Instead of carefully picking his way through the carnage, he belts along, using his gun to blast ahead (whereupon he loses altitude) or downwards (in order to gain height). You’re therefore charged with juggling these minimal controls while figuring out a route, getting the timing precisely right so you’re not killed and catapulted back to the start – repeatedly.

If that’s not quite enough for you, each level includes collectables, designed as a “gift to self-hating completionists” by the game’s creator. Masochistic? Quite possibly. Ingenious fun-infused havoc? Definitely.

Traveling on underground railways can be a fairly hideous experience, which is perhaps why Mini Metro is such a pleasant surprise. The game is all about designing and managing a subway, using an interface akin to a minimal take on the schematics usually found hanging on subway walls. And it’s glorious.

Periodically, new stations appear. You drag lines between them, and position trains on them, in order to shepherd passengers to their stops. All the while, movement generates a hypnotic, ambient soundtrack.

Over time, things admittedly become more fraught than during these relaxing beginnings. The demands of an increasing number of passengers forces you to juggle trains and rearrange lines until you’re inevitably overwhelmed. But the nature of the game is such that this never frustrates – instead, you’ll want to take another journey - hugely unlike when suffering the real thing.

From the creators of Machinarium and Botanicula, Samorost 3 is an eye-dazzlingly gorgeous old-school point-and-tap puzzler.

It follows the adventures of a gnome who sets out to search the cosmos and defeat a deranged monk who's smashed up a load of planets by attacking them with a steampunk hydra.

The wordless tale primarily involves poking about the landscape, revealing snatches of audio that transform into dreamlike animations hinting at what you should do next.

Although occasionally opaque, the puzzles are frequently clever, and the game revels in the joy of exploration and play. It's also full of heart – a rare enchanting title that gives your soul a little lift.

RPG combat games usually involve doddering about dungeons with a massive stick, walloping goblins. But in Solitairica, cards are your weapon; or, more accurately, cards are the means by which you come by weapons.

Your aim is to trudge to a castle, defeating enemies along the way. You do so in a simplified solitaire, where you string together combos by removing cards one higher or lower than your current card. Doing so collects energies used to unleash defensive or offensive spells.

Unfortunately, your enemies also have skills, and survival requires a mix of luck and planning to defeat them.

This involves managing your inventory so you're always armed with the best capabilities, while probably simultaneously wondering why the hero didn't arm themselves with a bloody great sword rather than a deck of cards.

One time darling of Sony handhelds, Lumines barges its way on to iOS by way of Lumines Puzzle & Music. If you've not played any games in the series before, we're very much in Tetris-style block-falling territory, only Lumines has a thumping beat at its core.

As you drop blocks into the well – each comprising up to two colors – you aim to craft solid slabs at least two-by-two squares in size; these are then wiped when the playhead moves over them.

Time it right and you get combos, high scores, and a giddy sense of smugness; mess up and you'll merely be taunted with a premature game over, while sadly nodding your head to the beat.

High-octane card games don’t seem the greatest fit for iPad gaming, but Exploding Kittens perfectly captures the manic chaos of the Oatmeal-illustrated original. As per that version, this is Russian roulette with detonating cats.

Players take turns to grab a card, and if they get an exploding kitten, they must defuse it or very abruptly find themselves out of the game.

Strategy comes by way of action cards, which enable you to peek at the deck, skip a turn, steal cards from an opponent, and draw from the bottom of the deck “like the baby you are”.

Local and online multiplayer is supported, timers stop people from dawdling, and a ‘chance of kitten’ meter helps everyone keep track of the odds. Large hands of cards rather irritatingly require quite a bit of swiping to peruse (although cards can be reordered), but otherwise this is first-rate and amusingly deranged multiplayer mayhem.

By the 1990s, pinball games had come a long way from their roots, and Timeshock! has long been regarded as something of a classic.

The basic plot involves unlocking and then traveling between time zones, achieving further goals by winning various prizes scattered throughout the ages.

Of course, this all comes by way of smacking a metal ball about the place, racking up points by successfully hitting ramps and targets.

Fast forward to 2016 and the original creators have had a couple of cracks at Kickstarter to bring back their game, the second of which succeeded.

But rather than a straight port, this new edition of Pro Pinball is reimagined for modern devices, with eye-popping graphics, lush lighting and remastered audio.

You only get one table, which might seem miserly in a world of Zen Pinball and Pinball Arcade, but it’s one of the best – and certainly the best-looking – pinball tables you’re going to find on an iPad.

There’s some seriously black humor lurking at the heart of 60 Seconds! Atomic Adventure. The game begins as a frantic collect ’em up, your chunky dad bounding around his home trying to grab whatever he can in order to survive an imminent nuclear strike.

The controls and physics are bouncy and elicit a sense of panic as you choose between shotguns, food, family members, maps, and radios.

Assuming you make it underground, the game switches to a Choose Your Own Adventure of sorts, with a smattering of resource management.

You dish out provisions, send your kid out into a probable nuclear winter, armed only with a torch and your best wishes, and attempt to eke out an existence before everyone inevitably dies of starvation.

It’s a bleak end of the world story as written by a satirical cartoonist: equally chilling, compelling and – due to the breezily-written narration – oddly entertaining.

One of the things the iPad’s been really great at is reimagining books. From textbooks to stories, interactive tomes have brought new life to literature and education alike.

Burly Men at Sea sits halfway between game and storybook, and features three chunky sailors with hugely impressive beards, keen on setting out to sea on an exciting adventure.

Being that this is a videogame, they’re of course instantly eaten by a whale, after which point you direct their progress by dragging the screen and tapping items to interact with them.

The story is short, but you end up in a kind of nautical Groundhog Day, retracing steps and attempting to locate further pathways to explore.

The branches are limited in number compared to the complexity found in the likes of 80 Days, but Burly Men at Sea remains essential nonetheless, due to its charm, polish and sheer artistry.

It might have the word 'deep' in its title and be about digging, but Dig Deep! isn't a game about depth. Instead, this is a frantic auto-runner/digger, a bit like Doug dug. on fast-forward.

As your little miner burrows into an alien world, you must avoid being blown up by buried explosives, eaten by alien monsters, or impaled on spikes some idiot carelessly left lying around.

All you can do is move left or right, dashing (by way of swipes) to scoot faster when necessary, and hope a pick-up (shields; super-fast digging boosters) shows up when you're in a tough spot.

This might all seem suited to iPhone, but Dig Deep! works far better on an iPad resting on a table. The larger display makes it easier to spot incoming hazards, and the seat-of-the-pants nature of Dig Deep! gives you more of a fighting chance when you're not covering half the display with two thumbs.

Although a fairly simple game to play, there's a lot to unpack in Severed. It features a one-armed woman attempting to save her family from a hell populated by hideous-looking beasts.

She roams dungeons, slicing enemies to bits and then - equally ingeniously and horrifically - uses their severed parts to level-up her own skills and powers.

There's no gore, though - Severed resembles Infinity Blade as reimagined by a graphic designer. The visuals are all sleek 2D planes, lines and tasteful gradients. But the battles are exciting, comprising frantic swordplay and careful parries.

Often, you find yourself surrounded, rhythmically flicking between monsters, figuring out which to kill first and those you can cope with absorbing a few blows from.

The repetitive nature of such skirmishes may pall a little over the game's length, but there's enough here to keep touchscreen swordplay fans occupied for hours. And the story that underpins the adventure has the kind of heart that provides an emotional center that's frequently lacking on mobile.

There's a strangeness at the core of Road Not Taken that will be familiar to anyone who's experienced Spry Fox's other top-notch mobile puzzler Triple Town. Road Not Taken is a more expansive title than its forebear, featuring a ranger attempting to rescue children lost in the woods during a harsh winter. Said younglings must be reunited with their parents, but that's easier said than done.

The frosty woods are full of horrors, and you have limited energy, sapped by moving when holding items, or when blasted by a blizzard.

You must therefore figure out the most efficient way to get the kids back to safety, making use of the game's quirky way of manipulating objects: tap and you hurl everything you're holding in a straight line away from you, until it hits something; combine several of a specific item and you'll sometimes be nicely surprised by what they transform into.

There is something of a take-no-prisoners aspect to Road Not Taken - it'll be a while before you fully understand its many nuances. But if you're after a game with depth, charm, and intrigue, this snowy puzzler won't leave you cold.

When playing Linia, you feel like a hunter, waiting to strike. Only instead of lobbing a spear at a wild beast, your prey is abstract shapes that shift and morph in cycles.

Your target is displayed at the top of the screen as a row of colored discs. You must then drag a line through shapes that match the provided series of target colors. Hit a wrong color – even if you only slice a bit too far – and you'll need to try again.

The mechanic is, of course, Fruit Ninja – and every other slicing game you've ever played; but the stark visuals and rhythmic nature of the targets results in something fresh and vibrant. And you'll need a strong sense of observation along with excellent timing and reactions to succeed, not least when shapes start revolving, pulsating, hiding, overlapping and changing before your very eyes.

From the minds behind World of Goo and Little Inferno comes this decidedly oddball puzzler. Human Resource Machine, in a non-too-subtle satirical dig at workers, finds a little employee as a cog in a corporate machine.

Actions (moving and sorting boxes) are 'automated' by way of programming inputs - loops and routines constructed by dragging and dropping commands.

This might seem daunting, but the learning curve isn't too harsh, and a distinct sense of personality permeates the entire production, smoothing things over when the mechanics are threatening to make your brain steam.

If there's a criticism, the story seems slight compared to the team's previous work, but it is nonetheless oddly affecting to see your little automaton age as you work your way through the game.

For people of a certain age, Day of the Tentacle will need no introduction. This pioneering work set the standard for point-and-click adventures in the early 1990s, through its mix of smart scripting, eye-popping visuals and devious puzzles.

On iPad, you get the original title more or less intact, along with a remastered edition, with all-new high-res art and audio. (You can instantly switch between the two using pinch gestures.)

Chances are the puzzles and pace might initially throw newcomers, but players old and new will find much to love trying to stop the nefarious purple tentacle taking over the world, along with delving into the importance of hamsters, and figuring out how to best utilize items to assist people stuck in three different time zones.

(And if you're very old and wondering if they included Maniac Mansion in the PC, it's there, in full!)

If you find golf a bit dull, Super Stickman Golf 3 offers a decidedly different take on the sport. Instead of rolling greens, a sprinkling of trees and the odd sandpit, golfers in this bizarre world pit their wits against gravity-free space-stations, floating islands, and dank caverns with glue-like surfaces.

The game's side-on charms echo Angry Birds in its artillery core, in the sense that careful aiming is the order of the day. But this is a far smarter and more polished title, with some excellent and imaginative level design.

With this third entry, you also get the chance to spin the ball, opening up the possibility of otherwise impossible shots. And once you're done with the solo mode, you can go online with asynchronous turn-based play and frenetic live races.

In Telepaint, a semi-sentient wandering paint pot wants nothing more than to be reunited with a brush. The tiny snag: it appears to be stuck in a world of brain-bending maze-like tests, comprising single screens of platforms and teleporters. Your goal is to figure out a route, avoiding pot-puncturing spikes and a clingy magnetic 'friend' - a task that becomes increasingly baffling and complex.

You're helped along a little by VCR-style controls that let you pause for breath, and these often become key to solving puzzles, enabling you to switch teleport triggers while everything else on-screen remains static. Even then, the going's tough.

Still, while Telepaint has the propensity to make your head hurt like having a paint can dropped on it, this is a colorful, unique and enjoyable iOS puzzling classic that's not to be missed.

One of the earliest 3D games was Battlezone, a tank warfare title at the time so realistic the US military commissioned a version from Atari to train gunners. iOS tribute Vector Tanks was subsequently gunned down by Atari lawyers, but its DNA survives in Tanks! - Seek & Destroy.

Like Battlezone, Tanks pits you against an endless number of vector tanks, on a sparse battlefield. But this is a much faster, tougher game, with tilt-and-tap controls that put you more in mind of console racing games than a stodgy tank 'em up. The result is a relentlessly thrilling 3D shooter that marries the best of old-school smarts and modern mobile gaming.

Pinball games tend to either ape real-world tables or go full-on videogame, with highly animated content that would be impossible on a real table. INKS. tries something different, boasting a modern 'flat design' aesthetic, and having coloured targets on each table that emit an ink explosion when hit with the ball.

Each of the dozens of tables therefore becomes a mix of canvas and puzzle as you try to hit targets while simultaneously creating a work of art. Neatly, as the ball rolls through ink splats, it creates paths across the table, which is visually appealing and also shows when your aim is off.

Because each level is short — usually possible to complete in a minute or so — INKS. manages to be both approachable enough for newcomers and different enough for experts to get some enjoyment out of.

Nintendo fans probably wonder why the big N hasn't yet brought the superb Advance Wars to iPad, but Warbits now scratches that particular itch. However, although Warbits is influenced by Nintendo's turn-based strategy title, it isn't a copy — the iOS game brings plenty of new thinking to the table and is very much optimised for the iPad.

Working with 16 varied units, you conquer a series of battlefields by directing your troops, making careful note of your strengths and the enemy's relevant weaknesses. All the while, Warbits merrily has you and your opponent trading barbs, often about subjects such as whether tomatoes are fruit, because that's the kind of thing you'd go to war over.

Finish the 20-mission campaign and you'll have a decent grasp of Warbits, and can then venture online to take on other human players across dozens of different maps. With superb visuals, enough new ideas over the game that inspired it, and a single one-off price-tag, Warbits is a must-buy for any iPad-owning strategy nut.

Traditional platform games often fare poorly on iPad, but Traps n' Gemstones bucks the trend. Its approach is resolutely old-school, from the on-screen controls to the Metroid-style gameplay that involves exploring a huge interconnected world, opening up new passageways by finding and correctly using objects.

The theme, though, is more Indiana Jones. A little chap, armed with a whip and with a fedora on his head, leaps about a pyramid, grabs loot, and gives mummies and snakes a good whipping. Interestingly, the game simultaneously manages to appeal to casual and hardcore gamers.

Progress doesn't reset, meaning you can keep getting killed but gradually work your way into the bowels of the pyramid. But your score reverts to zero when you come a cropper; getting into the thousands is therefore a big challenge for those who want to take it.

Love You to Bits has a heart as big as a thousand iPads. It's a tap-based adventure that finds a little space explorer trying to retrieve pieces of his android girlfriend that have been scattered across the galaxy.

The mechanics are right out of classic point-and-click gaming, essentially having you amble about 2D locations, unearth items and then drop them in the right spot.

But the game is so relentlessly creative and inventive with its environments — full of dazzling visuals, references to movies and other games, and increasingly clever mechanics and ideas — that you can't help but love it to bits yourself.

The little monster at the heart of A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build, wants some friends, and so sets about making them from crisp snow covering the ground. But as the game's title states, making snowman is hard — largely because of strict rules governing the monster's universe. Snowmen must comprise precisely three balls of gradually decreasing size, and any snowball rolled in the snow quickly grows. A Good Snowman therefore becomes a series of brain-bending puzzles - part Soko-Ban, part Towers of Hanoi - as you figure out how to manipulate balls of snow to build icy friends for a monster to hug.

You get the feeling creators of classic vertically scrolling shooters would sit in front of AirAttack 2 in a daze, dumbfounded at what's possible on modern home-computing devices. That's not down to the gameplay, though: like its predecessor, AirAttack 2 is a straightforward shooter - you're piloting a fighter in World War II, downing enemies while optionally yelling "tally ho" at an annoyingly loud volume.

But this World War II is decidedly different from the one that occurred in our reality: Germans own limitless squadrons and building-sized tanks (versus the Allies, seemingly relying on a single nutcase in a plane to win the war). It's the jaw-dropping visuals that really dazzle, effortlessly displaying swarms of enemies to down, colossal bosses to defeat, and a destructible environment to take out your frustrations on. For the low price (not least given that there's no IAP whatsoever), it's an insane bargain.

The first Badland combined the simplicity of one-thumb 'copter'/flappy games with the repeating hell of Limbo. It was a stunning, compelling title, pitting a little winged protagonist against all kinds of crazy ordeals in a forest that had clearly gone very wrong.

In Badland 2, the wrongness has been amplified considerably. Now, levels scroll in all directions, traps are deadlier, puzzles are tougher, and the cruelty meted out on the little winged beast is beyond compare. Still, all is not lost - the hero can now flap left and right. We're sure that comes as a huge consolation when it's sawn in half for the hundredth time.

We mention The Room and its sequel elsewhere in this list, but The Room Three is the best entry in the series yet. Again, this is a somewhat Myst-like game of exploration and puzzle-solving, figuring out how to escape your environment by utilising everything around you.

But there's more freedom this time round, with multi-room locations, surreal and deeply strange moments that find you sucked into the very puzzles you're trying to solve, and the creeping menace of The Craftsman, a malevolent nutcase who initially leaves you locked in a dungeon, and then tasks you with freeing yourself from the confines of the remote island on which you're stranded. One to play in the dark, with rain pouring down outside - if you dare.

This single-screen platformer initially resembles a tribute to arcade classics Bubble Bobble and Snow Bros., but Drop Wizard is a very different beast. It's part auto-runner, which might infuriate retro-gamers, but this proves to be a brilliant limitation in practice. Your little wizard never stops running, and emits a blast of magic each time he lands. You must therefore time leaps to blast roaming foes, and then boot the dazed creatures during a second pass. It's vibrant, fast-paced, engaging, and — since you only need to move left or right — nicely optimised for iPad play.

Since it rebooted Robotron-style twin-stick blasting, the Geometry Wars series has been the go-to game for a session of duffing up hordes of neon ships. Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved takes the basic concept and wraps it around 3D shapes lurching and spinning in space.

It disorients but brings a new dimension (pun intended) to the genre, and is one of the prettiest and noisiest games on the system. If you're armed with an iPad Pro, you even get a co-op mode, where two people play on the same screen.

A murder mystery inside a rickety old PC, itself inside your iPad, Her Story is one of the most intriguing titles around. It plonks you in front of the L.O.G.I.C. Database, a creaky old system that returns snippets of police interviews in relation to search terms. Helpfully, you can only access five at once, even if there are many more results (the joys of 1990s interface design!), but this forces you to delve deeper. Before long, you'll be scribbling notes, eking out clues from every other sentence, and realising there's more to every mystery than meets the eye.

One of the most beautiful games we've ever seen, Icycle: On Thin Ice also has a penchant for the surreal. It features naked hero Dennis, peddling through a strange and deadly post-apocalyptic frozen wonderland. Each level feels like a scene from a Gilliamesque animation, but on venturing further into madness, you'll note how tight the level design is — any failures are down to your fingers rather than the game. At the tail end of 2015, seven new locations arrived, so you could discover what happens at the end of the end of the world.

Much in the same way Hitman GO reworked a much-loved franchise for mobile, Lara Croft GO transforms Tomb Raider into a dinky turn-based boardgame of sorts. It shouldn't work, but the result is wonderful — all minimal, breathtaking visuals, and smart puzzles that present a challenge but rarely stop you for too long in continuing your journey. Most amazingly, it feels like a proper Tomb Raider game, with moments of wonder, and palpable tension when you mull over whether your next move will send Lara tumbling into the abyss.

Because of the nature of touchscreen controls, there's a tendency to slow things down on iOS. ALONE… throws such caution to the wind, flinging you along at Retina-searing speed as you try in vain to save a little ship hurtling through rocky caverns of doom.

This is a game that's properly exciting, and where every narrow escape feels like a victory; that all you're doing is dragging a finger up and down, trying in vain to avoid the many projectiles sent your way, is testament to you not needing a gamepad and complex controls to create a game that genuinely thrills.

It turns out the future will involve hoverboards, only it'll be robots piloting them. In Power Hover, all the humans are gone, but so too are the batteries that power your robot village. So you hop on your flying board and pursue a thief through 30 varied and visually stunning levels.

Whether scything curved paths across a gorgeous sun-drenched sea or picking your way through a grey and dead human city, Power Hover will have you glued to the screen until you reach the end of the journey. And although it's initially tricky to get to grips with, you'll soon discover the board's floaty physics and controls are perfectly balanced.

A love letter to trees. A game about the beauty and joy of cultivation. These aren't words that would usually scream 'amazing game'. But Prune is a unique and frequently remarkable experience. It starts simply, teaching you how to prune a tiny branch, so a plant can grow to reach the sunlight and blossom. Before long, you're responsible for cultivating huge trees that arc past poisonous floating orbs, dealing with fragile foliage in unforgiving cities, and coaxing unruly underground weeds towards their prize.

This fantastic platform puzzler stars a bug who's oddly averse to flying. Instead, he gets about 2D levels by rolling around in boxes full of platforms. Beyond Ynth HD hangs on a quest, but each level forms a devious test, where you must figure out precisely how to reach the end via careful use of boxes, switches and even environmental hazards.

And for anyone wanting an even sterner test, cunningly placed jewels are there to find in each stage, requiring all kinds of trickery and box manipulation to reach.

Blek is akin to shepherding semi-sentient calligraphy through a series of dexterity tests. Each sparse screen has one or more dots that need collecting, which is achieved by drawing a squiggle that's then set in motion. To say the game can be opaque is putting it lightly, but as a voyage of discovery, there are few touchscreen games that come close.

In what we assume is a totally accurate representation of what boffins in Geneva get up to, Boson X finds scientists sprinting inside colliders, running over energy panels and then discovering particles by leaping into the abyss.

Initially, at least, said abyss is quite tricky to avoid; but learn the patterns in each collider and you'll have a fighting chance of success in this addictive mash-up of Super Hexagon, Tempest and Canabalt.

CRUSH! is deceptive. At first, it appears to be little more than a collapse game, where you prod a coloured tile, only for the rest to collapse into the now empty space. But subtle changes to the formula elevate this title to greatness: the tiles wrap around, and each removal sees your pile jump towards a line of death. So even when tiles are moving at speed, you must carefully consider each tap.

Some variation is provided by the three different modes (which affect block speed and surges), and power-ups, which blast away colors and blocks in specific ways you can take advantage of.

Device 6 is first and foremost a story — a mystery into which protagonist Anna finds herself propelled. She awakes on an island, but where is she? How did she get there? Why can't she remember anything? The game fuses literature with adventuring, the very words forming corridors you travel along, integrated puzzles being dotted about for you to investigate.

It's a truly inspiring experience, an imaginative, ambitious and brilliantly realised creation that showcases how iOS can be the home for something unique and wonderful. It's also extremely tough at times. Our advice: pay attention, jot down notes, and mull away from the screen if you get stuck.

Eliss was the first game to truly take advantage of iOS's multi-touch capabilities, with you combining and tearing apart planets to fling into like-coloured and suitably-sized wormholes. This semi-sequel brings the original's levels into glorious Retina and adds a totally bonkers endless mode. Unique, challenging and fun, this is a game that defines the platform.

It's great to see Square Enix do something entirely different with Hitman GO, rather than simply converting its free-roaming 3D game to touchscreens. Although still echoing the original series, this touchscreen title is presented as a board game of sorts, with turn-based actions against clockwork opposition.

You must figure out your way to the prize, without getting knocked off (the board). It's an oddly adorable take on assassination, and one of the best iOS puzzlers. There's also extra replay value in the various challenges (such as grabbing a briefcase or not killing guards), each of which requires an alternate solution to be found.

A roller-coaster ribbon of road winds through space, and your only aim is to stay on it and reach the highest-numbered gate. But Impossible Road is sneaky: the winding track is one you can leave and rejoin, if you've enough skill, 'cheating' your way to higher scores. It's like the distillation of Super Monkey Ball, Rainbow Road and queue-jumping, all bundled up in a stark, razor-sharp package.

A boy awakens in hell, and must work his way through a deadly forest. Gruesome deaths and trial and error gradually lead to progress, as he forces his way deeper into the gloom and greater mystery.

Originating on the Xbox, Limbo fares surprisingly well on iOS, with smartly designed controls that feel entirely at home on the iPad. But mostly it's Limbo's eerie beauty and intriguing environments that captivate, ensuring the game remains hypnotic throughout.

Racing games are all very well, but too many aim for simulation rather than evoking the glorious feeling of speeding along like a maniac. Most Wanted absolutely nails the fun side of arcade racing, and is reminiscent of classic console title OutRun 2 in enabling you to drift effortlessly for miles. Add to that varied city streets on which to best rivals and avoid (or smash) the cops, and you've got a tremendous iOS racer.

The iPhone's a bit small for pinball, but the larger iPad screen is perfect for a bit of ball-spanging. Pinball Arcade is the go-to app for realistic pinball, because it lovingly and accurately recreates a huge number of classic tables.

Tales of the Arabian Nights is bundled for free, and the likes of Twilight Zone, Black Knight, Bride of PinBot and Star Trek: The Next Generation are available via in-app purchase. On exploring the various tables (you can demo all of them for free), it rapidly becomes apparent just how diverse and deep pinball games can be.

Ah, Super Hexagon. We remember that first game, which must have lasted all of three seconds. Much like the next — and the next. But then we recognised patterns in the walls that closed in on our tiny ship, and learned to react and dodge. Then you threw increasingly tough difficulty levels at us, and we've been smitten ever since.

That said, we suspect only if you're superhuman will you ever get to see the hallowed final screen that appears when you survive 60 seconds in every Super Hexagon mode.

Apple's mobile platform has become an unlikely home for traditional point-and-click adventures. Sword & Sworcery has long been a favourite, with its sense of mystery, palpable atmosphere, gorgeous pixel art and an evocative soundtrack.

Exploratory in nature, this is a true adventure in the real sense of the word, and it's not to be missed. (To say anything more would spoil the many surprises within. Just trust us on this one, grab a copy, don some headphones, and immerse yourself in a gorgeous virtual world.)

Threes! is all about matching numbered cards. 1s and 2s merge to make 3s, and then pairs of identical cards can subsequently be merged, doubling their face value. With each swipe, a new card enters the tiny grid, forcing you to carefully manage your growing collection and think many moves ahead. The ingenious mix of risk and reward makes it hugely frustrating when you're a fraction from an elusive 1536 card, but so addictive you'll immediately want another go.

You can almost see the development process behind this one: "Hey, fingers look a bit like legs, so if we put a skateboard underneath…" And so arrived one of the finest iOS sports titles, with you using your fingers to roam urban locations and perform gnarly stunts. Admittedly, this game is tricky to master, but it's hugely rewarding when you do so, and video highlights can be shared with your friends. The game's also a great example of touchscreen-oriented innovation — Touchgrind Skate just wouldn't be the same with a traditional controller.

Ever since cop-in-a-coma Rick awoke to find himself in a post-apocalyptic world filled with the undead, Walking Dead has captured the imagination of comic-book readers and TV viewers alike. The interactive version follows a new set of characters, but the threats facing them are no less terrifying.

As with creator Telltale's other titles, Walking Dead comes across like a mash-up of comic strip and adventure, with palpable moments of tension, and a game experience that changes depending on your actions. The first part of the story is free, and you can then buy new episodes; if you survive, season 2 is also available.

It didn't begin life on the iPad, but World of Goo certainly makes sense on it. A bewitching game of physics puzzles and bridge building, the title also has real heart at its core. The basics are disarmingly simple: use semi-sentient blobs to create structures that enable unused goo to access 'goo heaven' (by way of an industrial-looking pipe).

But through powerful and frequently surreal imagery, haunting audio and the odd moment of poignancy, you find yourself actually caring about little blobs of goo, rather than merely storming through the game's many levels.

At the heart of Year Walk is something dark and horrifying. This daring game is a first-person adventure of sorts, but it presents itself as a kind of living picture book. You begin in a sparse forest, snow crunching underfoot.

Gradually, a story is revealed that is unsettling, clever, distinctive and beautifully crafted — much like the game itself. You won't rest until the story's told, but getting to the end will mean facing many moments of horror in one of the iPad's most unmissable and original creations.

Pinball games tend to be divided into two camps. One aims for a kind of realism, aping real-world tables. The other takes a more arcade-oriented approach. Zen Pinball is somewhere in-between, marrying realistic physics with tables that come to life with animated 3D figures.

Loads of tables are available via IAP, including some excellent Star Wars and Marvel efforts. But for free you get access to the bright and breezy Sorcerer's Lair, which, aside from some dodgy voice acting, is a hugely compelling and fast-paced table with plenty of missions and challenges to discover.

]]>China Mobile launches MVNO, ropes in EE as partnerhttp://www.techradar.com/news/china-mobile-launches-mvno-ropes-in-ee-as-partner
http://www.techradar.com/news/china-mobile-launches-mvno-ropes-in-ee-as-partnerWorld’s biggest mobile network promises to make a big splash in crowded landscapeWed, 13 Dec 2017 12:23:53 +0000techradar.comDespite not having access to UK spectrum, China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile network operator by subscribers, has decided to launch in the UK as an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) using the CMLink brand.

EE will be China Mobile's launch partner for the service, with Transtel rumoured to be the designated MVNE. CMLink is a PAYG (pay as you go) offer with free calls and texts to CMLink and China Mobile users.

Rates for calls to other numbers and texts are 8p per minute/per text with 5p per MP. Monthly packages will also be available, with an £18 deal offering unlimited texts, 2000 minutes and 9GB allowance (which can increase to 27GB after 40 months).

Dr Li Feng, CEO of China Mobile International (CMI), said that the launch, the company's first MVNO offering in Europe, will target both the Chinese diaspora in the UK and the tens of thousands of Chinese tourists that visit the UK every year.

Alex Tempest, managing director of fixed, wholesale and MVNO sales at BT, added that the company was willing to support China Mobile's "innovative" approach.

Techradar Pro exclusively suggested today's launch back in November after invites for the official launch were sent out to British media.

How will the market react?

With nearly 900 million subscribers and revenues that significantly outstrip its competitors, China Mobile is a true giant to be reckoned with.

But Virgin Mobile and other existing MVNOs won't need to worry as CMLink's target audience does not overlap with theirs - at least not yet for the momemt.

Today's launch could be considered as an extension to the company's national network, rather than an attempt to compete local rivals.

Keep an eye on their auto-renewing monthly packs offer though, which are reasonably priced and could prove to be attractive to some niche verticals.

]]>Samsung Galaxy S9 release date, news and price rumorshttp://www.techradar.com/news/samsung-galaxy-s9
http://www.techradar.com/news/samsung-galaxy-s9Rumors suggest Samsung is well underway with the Galaxy S9 - here's what we've heard and what we want to see from the phone.Wed, 13 Dec 2017 11:47:01 +0000techradar.comUpdate: A leaked schematic might have given us a clear look at the Galaxy S9's design, complete with its fingerprint scanner location and dimensions. There's also growing evidence of an in-screen scanner.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 hit stores in early 2017, so it makes sense that we're hearing about the Samsung Galaxy S9, as it might only be months away.

The rumors are coming thick and fast for what the new phone will look like and feature, so we've rounded up the best of them here - as well as answering some key questions.

And below all that you'll find our wish list of the various things we most want from Samsung's next flagship.

Check out our review of the Samsung Galaxy S8 below.

Samsung Galaxy S9 price and release date

Hottest leaks:

An early 2018 announcement

We so far know little about when the Samsung Galaxy S9 will be announced, so we'll just have to go off what Samsung has done in the past.

Samsung announced the Galaxy S8 in late March, so we'd expect it will follow up with the Galaxy S9 roughly a year later, at the end of March 2018.

But it was late in announcing the Galaxy S8 in 2017 - the company waited about a month longer than normal, so it's possible that the S9 will land around the end of February, in which case it might be launched at Mobile World Congress 2018, as that's likely to take place at that sort of time.

Recent rumors state that - due to the fact the OLED screens that are likely to be used in the phones are being created earlier than usual - the Galaxy S9 will launch in January, but that would seem far too early for many reasons, not least because people who bought the S8 wouldn't be eligible to upgrade to it right away.

We had heard that the Galaxy S9 might be teased in January, but then launched a little later, however Samsung has now said that a January tease is "unlikely."

What we can safely predict is that the Samsung Galaxy S9 is sure to be expensive, as the Galaxy S8 launched at $720, £689, AU$1,199.

Samsung Galaxy S9 screen

Hottest leaks:

An in-screen scanner

A water-repellent coating

The Bell reports unnamed industry sources saying that Samsung has been hard at work on the display panels for the Galaxy S9 since late March 2017. If true, that’s apparently about 6 months earlier than usual.

As for the form the screen will take, it's rumored to retain the Galaxy S8's 18.5:9 aspect ratio.

There's also a good chance it will be the same size as the Galaxy S8, coming in at 5.8 inches, though we haven't yet heard any rumored sizes. It's also sure to be curved and continue Samsung's trend of using Super AMOLED, which delivers vibrant visuals and good contrast.

The biggest change could be an in-screen fingerprint scanner, which has been rumored. Notably the new Qualcomm Fingerprint Sensor can sit below quite thick displays, and OLED technology (used in Samsung flagship phones) was specifically mentioned.

Synaptics has also announced an in-screen scanner and mentioned not just OLED but also "infinity display" (which is what Samsung calls the S8's screen) and that it's being used on a phone made by a top five manufacturer.

All of that points to the Samsung Galaxy S9 having fingerprint-sensing technology below the glass.

Aside from that, in late 2016 Samsung licensed a new glass coating technology that makes water bounce off your smartphone screen. Samsung plans to include this tech in an upcoming phone, so it may mean the Galaxy S9 is much easier to use in the rain. Watch the video below to see how the technology works.

TechRadar's take: The screen is likely to be a similar size to the S8's and will probably retain that phone's 18.5:9 aspect ratio, since that's the new in-thing. Don't count on an in-screen scanner though.

Samsung Galaxy S9 design

Hottest leaks:

Smaller bezels

A repositioned fingerprint scanner

We don't know much about the design of the Galaxy S9 yet, but it will probably be similar to the Galaxy S8, albeit with some tweaks. And one of those tweaks could be smaller bezels, as a source claims the S9 will have around a 90% screen-to-body ratio, up from roughly 84% on the Galaxy S8.

In fact, a leaked image complete with dimensions backs that up, as it suggests that the Galaxy S9 will be marginally shorter than the S8, but will otherwise look similar, albeit with the scanner moved beneath the camera lens (but not in-screen as some rumors have suggested).

This could be what the Samsung Galaxy S9 will look like. Credit: Weibo

A possible alternative could come in the form of a fingerprint scanner built into a notch at the bottom of the screen, a bit like the one on the Essential Phone but at the bottom rather than the top.

That theory is based on a patent which shows exactly that, but patents often don't get used in products, so it may well not happen.

Could this be where the S9's fingerprint scanner sits? Credit: GalaxyClub / KIPRIS

We've also heard that the Galaxy S9 could have a modular design, with magnets on the back letting you attach hardware accessories (which could take the form of battery packs, zoom lenses or any number of other things), a bit like Motorola's Moto Mods.

Only one source has mentioned this possibility so far, so we'd take it with a huge pinch of salt, but it could be a key selling point of the S9 if true.

TechRadar's take: We'd expect a similar design to the S8, but likely with smaller bezels and a repositioned fingerprint scanner. A modular design is very unlikely.

Samsung Galaxy S9 camera

Hottest leaks:

1,000fps video recording

A 3D face scanner

A single-lens camera

When it comes to the camera, the Samsung Galaxy S9 is rumored to be able to shoot some incredible slow motion video.

Industry sources claim Samsung is working on a rear camera that can shoot at 1,000 frames per second, which would be better than anything on the market in a phone right now.

It's possible there could be differences between the cameras on the S9 and S9 Plus though, with one source saying that while the S9 Plus will have a dual-lens snapper, the S9 will just have a single-lens one. The sketch above echos that sentiment.

Either way, Samsung might offer a new way for you to unlock your phone, with leaker @UniverseIce claiming that the Galaxy S9 will have a '3D sensor front camera'.

They don't explain what they mean by that, but it sounds a lot like the iPhone X's Face ID system which allows you to use facial recognition to unlock the phone. And the 3D part suggests that like Apple's solution it won't be fooled by a picture. We wouldn't count on this feature, but we wouldn't rule it out either.

TechRadar's take: New camera modes and features are likely and a 3D face scanner is possible, but most evidence suggests the Galaxy S9 won't have a dual-lens camera.

Samsung Galaxy S9 battery

Hottest leaks:

A bigger, more efficient battery

We haven't heard much battery news, but one of the big chipset developments may allow the company to include a much bigger battery. A report suggests Samsung will now use Substrate-like PCB tech that will allow the Exynos chipset manufacturer to include a bigger battery without increasing the size of the processor.

That may mean the extra battery won't be on the Qualcomm Snapdragon-toting Galaxy S9, but it could mean big improvements for those who get the Exynos version.

However, whichever model you get efficiency improvements in the new chipsets should help the battery last longer.

TechRadar's take: Samsung is probably likely to be cautious about packing too big a battery into the phone given what happened with the Note 7, but a slight size increase is possible.

Samsung Galaxy S9 OS and power

Hottest leaks:

Snapdragon 845 or Exynos 9810 chipset

Just 4GB of RAM

Qualcomm has announced the Snapdragon 845, which will likely be powering US versions of the Samsung Galaxy S9.

It's an octa-core chip with four cores running at 2.8GHz and four at 1.8GHz, with the fastest cores delivering up to 30% better performance than the fastest cores in the Snadragon 835. AI processing and graphics performance have also been improved, while power use has been reduced.

The chipset also allows cameras to record 4K Ultra HD video at 60fps.

Outside of the US, buyers are likely to get Samsung's own Exynos 9810.

It includes an LTE modem which supports theoretical download speeds of 1.2Gbps - faster than any other phone, meaning you could potentially download an HD movie within just 10 seconds.

That's a claim that's been echoed by a recent benchmark for the Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus, but it's slightly surprising given that the Galaxy Note 8 has 6GB of RAM.

The benchmark is questionable though, as while it lists the Exynos 9810 chipset, which is likely to be used, along with Android Oreo, the actual scores achieved by the phone in the benchmark are far lower than we'd expect from a Samsung flagship, so the listing could be fake.

TechRadar's take: As unlikely as just 4GB of RAM might seem most of the evidence seems to be pointing in that direction. What we can be more sure of is that you'll get either a Snapdragon 845 or Exynos 9810 chipset (depending on where you are) and that the phone will run Android Oreo.

Samsung Galaxy S9 other features

Hottest leaks:

An improved iris scanner

Stereo speakers

Samsung will likely improve the iris scanner ifor the Galaxy S9, with the latest rumors suggesting it will be boosted to 3MP (from 2MP on the S8) and better able to recognize your eyes, even if you wear glasses or the lighting is poor. It will also apparently be faster than on the S8.

The Samsung Galaxy S9 might also have good sound, as there are rumors of it both having AKG stereo speakers and a free set of Bluetooth AKG headphones.

We've also seen a Samsung patent for a sensor which would analyze atmospheric conditions and alert you to how much pollution there was in the air.

Plus, one source has also claimed the Dex docking station we saw debut alongside the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus will get an update that will make it work more like a charging pad and allow you to type on the screen too. It means you won't need to use a keyboard and mouse when connecting your phone up to a monitor.

And there's evidence that the Galaxy S9 could have a dual-SIM slot, as there's mention of one at the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), though that model might be limited to parts of Asia.

TechRadar's take: With the exception of a pollution monitor all of these features are believable, and the iris scanner upgrades seem especially likely.

Samsung Galaxy S9: what we want to see

The Samsung Galaxy S8 is still the new shiny, but we've had a brainstorm about the improvements we'd like to see on the Galaxy S9.

1. A foldable screen

Rumors of the Samsung Galaxy X - a phone with a foldable display - have been building for the past few years.

A Samsung executive has told the media that the company doesn't plan to launch a fully foldable phone until at least 2019, but plans may change in the coming months.

For Samsung to build the first truly foldable phone and sell it in 2018 would be a major boost to the South Korean company, and may change the way we use our phones forever.

]]>The best Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL deals for Christmas 2017http://www.techradar.com/news/google-pixel-2-deals
http://www.techradar.com/news/google-pixel-2-dealsIf you want Google's new Pixel 2 or Pixel 2 XL you've come to the right place - we'll tell you the best Pixel 2 deals around.Wed, 13 Dec 2017 11:30:52 +0000techradar.comGoogle's quest to build a smartphone as popular as the latest iPhone and Samsung Galaxy took a massive step forward when the original Google Pixel launched last year. Its successor - the aptly named Google Pixel 2 - is now on the shelves.

The Pixel 2 is a phone for Android lovers who want the purist interface on the market - even if it does only look like an incremental update from the original Pixel. But it's substantially more affordable than the likes of the Galaxy Note 8 and iPhone X, making it an obvious choice if you want a brand new flagship phone without paying stupid money.

And then there's the supersized Pixel 2 XL as well, with its fantastic 6-inch QHD+ display. Read on to see exactly how much you'll have to pay for your choice of new Google phone with our Pixel deals comparison chart.

Need some more convincing? Our exclusive 10OFF voucher code with Mobiles.co.uk knocks a tenner off the upfront cost of any deal. And there's a summary of our expert review at the bottom of the page.

The best Google Pixel 2 deals in the UK today:

We've scoured the UK's networks and retailers to home in on the best Pixel 2 deals. You can get the new Google smartphone on O2, Vodafone or EE - the choice is yours...

The best Google Pixel 2 XL deals in the UK today:

Want that bigger QHD+ screen? Go for the Pixel 2 XL instead if you plan to use your phone to stream films and TV. But you'd better be prepared to pay for the privilege - the price really shoots up, as there are fewer retailers competing on price.

Google Pixel 2 deals for SIM-free: how much does the phone cost?

When the Pixel 2 hit the market, we were urging people to buy the handset outright and combine it with a cheap SIM only deal. The Pixel 2 costs £629 and the Pixel 2 XL will be £799 to buy SIM-free and adding in a SIM plan for a fiver a month made financial sense. But now that contract plans have shot down in price, they are now the more cost-effective way to go.

There's no doubt that the Pixel 2 is one of the very finest Android phones out there, but the Pixel's successor is a familiar story of incremental improvements rather than whole-scale change. The feature that might just get you buying are the top-of the-line cameras for photos and video. While the delightful screen, great-sounding speakers and slick Android operating system will all appeal to a range of smartphone users.

]]>The best iPhone 8 deals for Christmas 2017http://www.techradar.com/news/iphone-8-deals
http://www.techradar.com/news/iphone-8-dealsWe've chosen the best value iPhone 8 deals currently available in the UK - we'll find you the best price on Apple's flagship.Wed, 13 Dec 2017 11:00:31 +0000techradar.comSales season is upon us and brilliant iPhone 8 deals have been plentiful. Even in the few weeks after the iPhone X hit the shelves, prices continued to linger at quite a high level. But Black Friday and Cyber Monday were very kind to iPhone 8 shoppers looking for a nice price, and then the January Sales. It's the most wonderful time if the year...for bargain hunters.

Not all iPhone 8 deals were born equal of course and if you're careful you can save yourself lots of money by using TechRadar's price comparison tool on this very page! Watch out for certain deals with low data costing more than those with lots of data.

To make it even easier, we've picked out specific recommendations further down so you can easily locate the most attractive deals at different data points, networks and budgets.

Save £10 on the upfront cost of any iPhone 8 deal at Mobiles.co.uk by using the voucher code 10OFF at the checkout!

Filter and compare all of the iPhone 8 deals available in the UK:

The best iPhone 8 deals you can buy in the UK today:

When the iPhone 8 hit the shelves, we were doing everything possible to prepare people that they were going to have to spend big to get the 2017 Apple iPhone. But as you'll see, you can already get this brilliant iPhone for less than £1000 over the two years and there are some fantastic deals to be snapped up...

iPhone 8 deals: how much does the phone cost?

The SIM-free price of the new iPhone 8 is £699. That's £100 more than the iPhone 7 cost when it launched in the UK 12 months ago, so while this is not the iPhone X, nor is it what you'd call a cheap alternative. To get the phone on a 24 month contract you'll obviously have to pay a fair whack more than that, so depending on which tariff suits you best you may or may not be better off buying SIM free with a SIM only deal.

Don't expect a revolution with the iPhone 8. It's essentially a tweaked iPhone 7 with a few enhancements and one or two upgrades. For that reason we wouldn't particularly recommend this phone to anyone with an iPhone 7 - but for those with older phones this could make a timely upgrade if the price of the iPhone X makes you want to weep.

Best iPhone 8 deals on EE this month

Best iPhone 8 deals on O2 this month

Best iPhone 8 deals on Vodafone this month

Best iPhone 8 deals on Three this month

]]>The best iPhone SE deals available for Christmas 2017http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/iphone-se-deals-1317744
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/iphone-se-deals-1317744We've rounded up the best iPhone SE deals from all the UK networks and resellers.Wed, 13 Dec 2017 11:00:06 +0000techradar.comIt finally seems to have happened. iPhone SE deal prices may finally have bottomed out. After the fanfare that met Apple's 2016 launch of a budget handset, iPhone SE prices have fallen steadily since. But after a few months of plateaued contract plans, we reckon that the SE is now as cheap as it ever will be.

There are are now plenty of tariffs going for less than £20 per month, which includes the 128GB model. Plus, thanks to some epic cashback offers on varying networks, you can now get the iPhone SE for as little as an effective £14 per month. That's exceptional value.

The tech world rejoiced when the iPhone SE was released. Finally a new Apple phone that doesn't require you to remortgage your house - unlike the iPhone X! It looks and feels exactly the same as the iPhone 5S. But instead of sporting two-year-old hardware it's fully up to date, with a super-fast CPU and graphics, and the 12MP iSight camera straight out of the iPhone 6S.

If cheap iPhone SE deals are what you seek, then you've definitely come to the right place. Use TechRadar's comparison chart to easily find the ideal plan, or scroll down further to find our pick of the best SE deals on the market.

Top 5 best iPhone SE deals across all UK networks:

Lower down the page you'll be able to read about all of the best iPhone SE deals on a model-by-model and network-by-network basis. But first of all here are the best deals so you can instantly see what the best offers are from O2, Three and Vodafone, with EE deals currently leading the pack.

Launched back in March 2016, the 'Special Edition' iPhone SE was a rare example of Apple dropping its entry-level price to allow bargain-hunters a piece of the iPhone pie. It reduced the screen size from the iPhone 6, but kitted it out with the same camera as the iPhone 6S. In short, it's a premium smartphone with a lower price tag – and we like that!

Best iPhone SE deals on EE

Best iPhone SE deals on O2

Best iPhone SE deals on Vodafone

Best iPhone SE deals on Three

]]>The best iPhone 7 deals for Christmas 2017http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/iphone-7-deals-1328296
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/iphone-7-deals-1328296See how to get your hands on Apple's iPhone 7 from only £22.99 a month.Wed, 13 Dec 2017 11:00:00 +0000techradar.comForget those iPhone 8 deals. Laugh in the face of iPhone X deals. iPhone 7 deals are down to an all time low - you can now get Apple's fantastic 2016 flagship phone for less than £700 over the two year contract.

Prices fell through the floor for Black Friday, and they haven't stopped since. It's now possible to get an iPhone 7 for as little as £22.99 a month without a ridiculous upfront spend to go with it. These tariffs make the iPhone 7 almost as cheap as some of the best iPhone 6S deals currently on the market, and hundreds of pounds cheaper than the iPhone X and 8.

On this page you'll find all of the best iPhone 7 deals you can get right now. Whether you're looking for unlimited data, a free phone or any other type of tariff, you can use our comparison chart below to choose the cheapest option out there. Scroll down to find the best deal for you. And don't forget that you'll get a tenner off the handset cost if you get your iPhone 7 from Mobiles.co.uk - you just need to enter 10OFF as a discount code when you get to the checkout.

The best iPhone 7 deals in the UK today

At the top of our guide you'll see what we've chosen as this month's best value iPhone 7 deals in the UK (if you're down under, head over to our best Australian iPhone 7 deals). These are chosen purely on the basis of value - unlike some other sites we don't manipulate the order of these deals for commercial gain! Then we pick out the best deals on the four major networks, those being EE, O2, Three and Vodafone.

Now let's break down the best iPhone 7 deals by network...

Best iPhone 7 deals on EE this month

Best iPhone 7 deals on O2 this month

Best iPhone 7 deals on Vodafone this month

Best iPhone 7 deals on Three this month

]]>The best Samsung Galaxy S8 deals for Christmas 2017http://www.techradar.com/news/samsung-galaxy-s8-deals
http://www.techradar.com/news/samsung-galaxy-s8-dealsSee all the best deals on the Samsung Galaxy S8 this month - still one of the best Android phones on the market.Wed, 13 Dec 2017 10:30:38 +0000techradar.comPhew! Following the incredible Samsung Galaxy S8 sales bonanaza that was Black Friday, prices shot back up for a few weeks. Thankfully Carphone Warehouse-owned retailer e2save has come to the rescue if you're considering buying Samsung;s 2017 flagship smartphone - it's just released some incredible new tariffs on EE.

Our comparison chart below lists all the current cheapest prices. Notwithstanding the release of the Galaxy Note 8 and iPhone X, the Samsung Galaxy S8 is still one of the most impressive phones ever released. Here you can find, filter and compare all of the best Samsung Galaxy S8 deals currently available in the UK.

Underneath the comparison tool, you'll find our editors' selections for all of the best value S8 deals currently available from the major networks, EE, O2, Vodafone and Three. With the rumour mill beginning to whirl around the forthcoming Galaxy S9, we also have recommendations for the best value plans on the S8 in our view, whether you're after the cheapest deal available, loads of data or a good balance of both.

Samsung Galaxy S8: consider going SIM only

If you’re determined to get yourself a Samsung Galaxy S8, the most economical way of doing it is to buy the phone outright and pair it with a SIM only deal. The £689 RRP is certainly high, but it can still work out a little cheaper on average over the two years - especially now that some retailers are selling it for £100 less than that. Check out our page dedicated to the best unlocked SIM free Galaxy S8 prices.

With the Galaxy S8, Samsung is getting nearer and nearer to smartphone perfection. The bezel-less design is something a little bit special in an area of tech that can sometimes feel like it's standing still. There are advancements with the splendid screen and fantastic 12MP camera, too.

Samsung Galaxy S8 deals by network

The best Samsung Galaxy S8 deals on O2

The best Samsung Galaxy S8 deals on Vodafone

The best Samsung Galaxy S8 deal on Three

]]>Leaked Samsung Galaxy S9 schematics reveal possible design and dimensionshttp://www.techradar.com/news/leaked-samsung-galaxy-s9-schematics-reveal-possible-design-and-dimensions
http://www.techradar.com/news/leaked-samsung-galaxy-s9-schematics-reveal-possible-design-and-dimensionsA sketch seemingly showing the Galaxy S9 has revealed its possible design, dimensions and fingerprint scanner location.Wed, 13 Dec 2017 10:15:10 +0000techradar.comDespite likely launching early next year we haven’t seen much of the Samsung Galaxy S9 yet, but a newly leaked sketch might give us a good idea of how it will look.

Posted on Weibo (a Chinese microblogging platform), the sketch shows a phone that looks a lot like the Samsung Galaxy S8, complete with a curved screen and tiny bezels. However, there are some differences, most notably the position of the fingerprint scanner, which is still on the back but has seemingly moved under the camera lens.

This would make sense, as it’s likely to be an easier position to reach than the scanner to the right of the lens on the S8, but it does mean that rumors of an in-screen scanner would be incorrect.

You can also see that it appears to be just a single-lens camera, rather than moving to a dual-lens one like the Samsung Galaxy Note 8. However, we’ve previously heard rumors that only the Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus will get a second lens, so that lines up.

Could this be the form the Samsung Galaxy S9 will take? Credit: Weibo

Shrinking down

The main other thing to take away from these images is the dimensions of the phone, which are also listed.

The image is low quality enough that we can’t confidently make them out, but it looks to us like it says 147.63 x 58.63 x 8.41mm, except where the camera lens slightly sticks out, which seems to be listed as 8.76mm thick. That said, Android Headlines reckons the width is 68.69mm.

Either way, if these dimensions are accurate then the Galaxy S9 would be slightly shorter than the 148.9 x 68.1 x 8mm Galaxy S8, which would make sense, since it’s rumored to have even smaller bezels.

Of course, a schematic like this could easily have been faked so we wouldn’t count on its accuracy, but it lines up with other things we’ve heard, so this could be one of our first looks at the form the S9 will take.

]]>The best Samsung Galaxy Note 8 deals for Christmas 2017http://www.techradar.com/news/samsung-galaxy-note-8-deals
http://www.techradar.com/news/samsung-galaxy-note-8-dealsIt'll cost a pretty penny, but you've come to the right place to find the best deals on the new Samsung Galaxy Note 8.Wed, 13 Dec 2017 10:00:38 +0000techradar.comThe Samsung Galaxy Note 8 certainly has a point to prove and it's now available buy. It's never going to be your go-to option if you're on a tight budget, but it's got the screen size and specification smarts to be a competitor to the much lauded iPhone X.

The price fell drastically for Black Friday, but stocks are now very low - it seems that every man and his dog bought one! Check out our price comparison tool below for the best prices. We've picked out five of our favourite deals as well, and we tell you more about this mammoth mobile further down the page.

It might seem a tad unfair, but we can't not mention the Galaxy Note 7 debacle when talking about its successor. Samsung's 2016 aborted project due to overheating and fire risks means that we've had to wait two years for a fully functioning Note-branded phablet from the South Korean tech behemoth. But we can now move forward from that chapter in tech history - the Note 8 is well and truly here!

The best Galaxy Note 8 deals in the UK

Should I get the Galaxy Note 8 SIM free?

You must be somebody after our own heart. Always looking to see how you can trim a few pounds off your new favourite gadget. As you probably know, you can now pick up cheap SIM only deals for as little as £4 a month, which could make it worth buying a SIM and handset separately.

Well the Galaxy Note 8's RRP is £869. Even if you get the cheapest SIM card (usually around £4 a month for 500MB data), that would still cost almost £1,000 over the two years. You're probably better cranking up the upfront cost in our price comparison chart above, imposing a low maximum for monthlies and finding a cheaper deal in the long run.

Wondering what all the fuss is about? Well the fervour for the Note 8 is probably doubled due to the fact that the Note 7 was pulled from shelves soon after release. But it doesn't take more than one look at the Note 8 to see that it justifies the hype.

The huge 6.3-inch ‘Infinity Display,’ is gorgeous to look at, the 6GB RAM innards go like a train and there are two best-in-class rear cameras. It's expensive, but we think the Note 8 is worth it.

Now let's break down the best Samsung Galaxy Note 8 deals by network...

Best Galaxy Note 8 deals on EE this month

Best Galaxy Note 8 deals on O2 this month

Best Galaxy Note 8 deals on Vodafone this month

Best Galaxy Note 8 deals on Three this month

]]>The best iPhone 6S deals for Christmas 2017http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/iphone-6s-deals-1304297
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/iphone-6s-deals-1304297A more affordable way to own a fantastic iPhone, see our comparison tool and handpicked iPhone 6S deals.Wed, 13 Dec 2017 10:00:00 +0000techradar.comIt doesn't take a genius to work out why you've landed on this page, dear reader. You fancy a new iPhone, but the prices you've seen for the iPhone 8 have given you a fright and got you searching around for something a little cheaper. Grabbing an iPhone 6S deal is the obvious solution.

For a while that was only half true, after iPhone 7 deals took a massive price tumble and pulled the rug from under the best 6S prices. But we've just seen the first sub-£20 a month tariff on Apple's 2015 flagship phone once again making it a great budget option if you don't want to spend the earth on your new iPhone.

If you want more than the minimum of data, then check out our comparison chart below, or head straight down to our pick of the best tariffs on the web.

The 6S may not be the newest (or best) iPhone any longer, but it still features all of the excellence of one of Apple's best-selling phones – the iPhone 6 – with added features like improved battery life and 3D touch, where you can press a bit harder on the screen to get a different response.

The top 5 best iPhone 6S deals in the UK this month:

We've gone all Top of the Pops to show you our favourite five iPhone 6S deals on the market right now - we'll give you a clue...they're much cheaper than the iPhone X! Read about all of the best iPhone 6S deals here, including tariffs on EE, O2, Vodafone and Three.

It may be very similar to its predecessor, but there's no denying that the iPhone 6s makes a fantastic alternative to the much more pricey iPhone 7. 3D Touch is a genuine innovation, and the phone works fluidly at nearly every task. Simply splendid.

]]>The best iPhone X deals for Christmas 2017http://www.techradar.com/news/iphone-x-deals
http://www.techradar.com/news/iphone-x-dealsThe 10th anniversary iPhone X is extremely expensive. We tell you the handset price and where to get the best iPhone X deals.Wed, 13 Dec 2017 09:30:49 +0000techradar.comThe iPhone X is Apple's ridiculously big, ridiculously powerful 10th anniversary phone and deals are finally available to order. If you're in the market to buy then you've come to exactly the right place - we've collected up all the best iPhone X deals right here, whether you're after a contract plan or want to buy the iPhone X SIM-free upfront.

We've trawled the UK's most popular retailers and networks, so you know that you won't end up ordering an iPhone X now, only to get deal envy when you see that your mate managed to get a cheaper price.

Whether you're after a big data deal to keep you streaming and surfing, or just want the cheapest iPhone X out there, you can use the comparison tools below to find your way to the best iPhone X deals. Or see our handpicked recommendations for the best deals below that. And if it's still just too expensive, then be sure to head to our best mobile phone deals page for the greatest deals on the iPhone X alternatives.

Filter and compare all of the iPhone X deals available in the UK:

The best iPhone X deals in the UK today:

Alternatively, you can head straight to the websites of the UK's biggest networks and mobile phone retailers to see their iPhone X deals first hand:

iPhone X price: how much does it cost?

We're going to level with you straightaway. The iPhone X IS EXPENSIVE. Are you ready for this...the 64GB version will cost an astonishing £999 at the outset.

But look on the bright side...at least you'll get £1 change from the thousand pound spend on your new phone!

Go for the 256GB model instead if you still like to save catalogues of photos, songs and films to your phone, and you'll have to find £1,149 instead. At that price, now might be the time to get in to streaming.

We think that the iPhone X is the most important iPhone ever launched. After years of incremental upgrades, Apple has pulled out all the stops for its 10th anniversary smartphone. Face ID lets you unlock your phone just by looking at it, the stunning 5.8-inch Super Retina HD display does away with the bezel almost entirely, there's wireless charging, and that's before we even get to Animojis!

Best iPhone X deals on EE

Best iPhone X deals on O2

Best iPhone X deals on Vodafone

Best iPhone X deals on Three

]]>The best Three mobile deals for Christmas 2017http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/3-mobile-deals-1297028
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/3-mobile-deals-1297028We've found the best deals on Three so you don't need to look around - including the cheapest iPhone 7 and Galaxy S8 prices.Wed, 13 Dec 2017 09:15:00 +0000techradar.com

Three mobile has for a long time been well known in the UK for offering good deals, especially for customers looking for some seriously big data bundles. In the early days, the network was blighted by poor reception in many areas but these days Three mobile doesn't have any such issues and its prices can be stellar.

So take a look at our comparison tool to see what you can get for your money with Three. And below that we've also handpicked the best the network has to offer on flagship handsets such as the iPhone X and Samsung Galaxy Note 8.

And if you're perfectly happy with your current handset but are at the end of your contract, then we heartily recommend that you consider the 30GB Three SIM only deal for just £18 per month - it won the Mobile Choice Consumer Award 2017 for Best Phone Deal.

Oh gosh, Apple went and did it. After years upon years of incremental upgrades, it finally made something special to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the iPhone. For the iPhone X it has dropped the bezel altogether, while the 5.8-inch Super Retina HD is scarily good. And if you tuned into the launch event and liked the look of Animojis, well there's that as well!

Thanks to the spectacle that was the iPhone X launch (see above for more of that splendour), the reception for the iPhone 8 was a little bit flat. Perhaps unfairly - it improves on the iPhone 7 with wireless charging and an improved camera. Plus, it's quite a bit cheaper. So if you're looking for the best iPhone but balk at the iPhone X expense, try the 8 on for size instead.

Sssssshhhhh! Don't mention the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 and its troublesome little overheating problem. The awesome Galaxy Note 8 has helped as forget all about that little fiasco thanks to its vast 6.3-inch infinity display and razor sharp 6GB Ram. If you want the best big screen Android phone on the market, then look no further.

There's no doubt that the Samsung Galaxy S8 is a fantastic phone. The lightning fast chip-set and abandonment of a large bezel around the screen makes it the premier Android experience. It's expensive for sure, but there are bargains to be found...

The new iPhone 7 is another smash hit mobile phone from Apple thanks to further design enhancements. It's now waterproof, has a better screen and stereo speakers. The long-rumoured dropping of the headphone jack has become a reality. Memory capacity has been given a boost now, with the smallest models now starting at a much more spacious 32GB.

The iPhone SE looks and feels exactly the same as the iPhone 5S. But instead of sporting two-year-old hardware it's been updated, with a faster CPU and graphics, and the 12MP iSight camera straight out of the iPhone 6S. It's a modern iPhone in the shape of an old iPhone, for people who like the old iPhones but want more up-to-date hardware.

]]>The best iPhone 6 deals for Christmas 2017http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/the-best-iphone-6-deals-1265931
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/the-best-iphone-6-deals-1265931Want Apple's iPhone 6 for the cheapest possible price? We've found the best deals from all the leading networks.Wed, 13 Dec 2017 09:00:31 +0000techradar.comIt may be three years old (doesn't time fly!) and attention is now much more focused on the new iPhone X, but the iPhone 6 is an excellent alternative to costly iPhone 8 deals. So if your contract is up, you're ready to upgrade, want an Apple handset but also want to keep your spending down, then the iPhone 6 is well worth a look.

And you need look no further, because we've done all the research for you! We've rounded up the UK's best contract deals for Apple's iPhone 6. The good news is that the price of the iPhone 6 has fallen through the floor. Now with plenty of deals under £20 a month, there's never been a better time to pick up this still-fantastic phone.

With the deals you can grab in our comparison chart below, you can fill your boots with unlimited texts and minutes, as well as a healthy slug of data. Buy buy BUY!

The UK's top 5 best iPhone 6 deals

It may be three years old, but the iPhone 6 has aged admirably. And the mature age also means the prices are fantastic. We've sorted through the finest iPhone 6 deals from EE, O2, Vodafone and Three to narrow down the best five plans available today.

Unlike more recent entries in the iPhone ouevre, Apple made a genuine leap forward from the iPhone 5S with its successor. The iPhone 6 remains one of the best phones Apple has ever created or, indeed, ever created by any manufacturer. At the time of release, its faster CPU, better graphics and slicker interface really made it seem worth the high price - so now it's a bonafide bargain!

]]>The best Vodafone deals for Christmas 2017http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/vodafone-deals-1296637
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/vodafone-deals-1296637Your cheat sheet to all the best Vodafone deals on all the best smartphones.Wed, 13 Dec 2017 07:15:00 +0000techradar.com

Vodafone is one of the biggest networks in the world and one of the most powerful brands in the UK. Not surprising when they so frequently offer excellent tariffs on flagship handsets like the iPhone 8, Galaxy S8 and the market's other favourite phones.

Vodafone seems to go through fits and spurts when it comes to how competitively it's priced. It can go from the cheapest on the market, to absolutely terrible on our mobile phone deal comparison charts. It usually can't compete with Three deals when it comes to big data bundle. But if your data sweet spot is around 16GB a month, Vodafone frequently then becomes a lot more competitive with prices that challenge EE phone deals and O2 deals. And, if you're lucky, you may be hunting for your smartphone when its running a promotion where you get an extra 10GB for free.

If Vodafone appeals to you though - or if you want to bag a Red Entertainment package that gives you a year's subscription to Spotify Premium, NOW TV Entertainment or the Sky Sports app - then that's where this page comes in! We've rounded up all of the best Vodafone phone deals so that you don't have to, just take a look at TechRadar's bespoke comparison chart below.

Oh gosh, Apple went and did it. After years upon years of incremental upgrades, it finally made something special to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the iPhone. For the iPhone X it has dropped the bezel altogether, while the 5.8-inch Super Retina HD is scarily good. And if you tuned into the launch event and liked the look of Animojis, well there's that as well!

Thanks to the spectacle that was the iPhone X launch (see above for more of that splendour), the reception for the iPhone 8 was a little bit flat. Perhaps unfairly - it improves on the iPhone 7 with wireless charging and an improved camera. Plus, it's quite a bit cheaper. So if you're looking for the best iPhone but balk at the iPhone X expense, try the 8 on for size instead.

Sssssshhhhh! Don't mention the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 and its troublesome little overheating problem. The awesome Galaxy Note 8 has helped as forget all about that little fiasco thanks to its vast 6.3-inch infinity display and razor sharp 6GB Ram. If you want the best big screen Android phone on the market, then look no further.

There's no doubt that the Samsung Galaxy S8 is a fantastic phone. The lightning fast chip-set and abandonment of a large bezel around the screen makes it the premier Android experience. It's expensive for sure, but there are bargains to be found...

The new iPhone 7 is another smash hit mobile phone from Apple thanks to further design enhancements. It's now waterproof, has a better screen and stereo speakers. The long-rumoured dropping of the headphone jack has become a reality. Memory capacity has been given a boost now, with the smallest models now starting at a much more spacious 32GB.

The iPhone SE looks and feels exactly the same as the iPhone 5S. But instead of sporting two-year-old hardware it's been updated, with a faster CPU and graphics, and the 12MP iSight camera straight out of the iPhone 6S. It's a modern iPhone in the shape of an old iPhone, for people who like the old iPhones but want more up-to-date hardware.

Google's own flagship handset has proved very popular with people wanting the purist Android experience out there. The Google Pixel 2 is every bit the match for the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S8 and you know that you'll always have the most up-to-date Android operating system. And the cameras can scarcely be matched by any other smartphone today.

]]>Honor 6X, Honor 8 Pro now available at a discounted price on Amazonhttp://www.techradar.com/news/honor-6x-honor-8-pro-now-available-at-a-discounted-price-on-amazon
http://www.techradar.com/news/honor-6x-honor-8-pro-now-available-at-a-discounted-price-on-amazonThe discount is a limited period offer and can be available between December 12 and December 19 on Amazon India.Wed, 13 Dec 2017 07:12:00 +0000techradar.comChinese smartphone maker Honor has announced a discount on two of its popular devices, the Honor 6X and Honor 8 Pro in India. The discount is a limited period offer and can be available between December 12 and December 19 on Amazon India.

The Honor 6X, the company’s 2017 budget device in India has received a discount of Rs. 2,000 and the 32GB storage variant of the device is available for Rs. 9,999 and the 64GB variant will be available for Rs. 11,999, down from their earlier prices of Rs. 11,999 and Rs. 13,999 respectively.

The Honor 8 Pro, the company’s flagship smartphone has received a discount of Rs. 4,000 from the Huawei-owned Honor. The device is currently available for Rs. 25,999, down from its original price of Rs. 29,999.

Both, the Honor 6X and Honor 8 Pro come with a dual camera setup. Earlier this month, Honor had launched the Honor 7X in India, with a starting price of Rs. 12,999. With this discount on the Honor 6X, the company hopes to clear out the remaining stock of the older device. Let’s take a look at the specifications of the two devices that have been discounted.

It features a dual camera setup consisting of a 12MP primary camera with PDAF and a 2MP secondary camera. On the front, the device comes with an 8MP secondary camera for selfies.

Honor 8 Pro Specifications

The Honor 8 Pro, the company’s flagship device comes with a more powerful hardware. It features a 5.7-inch Quad HD display, an Octa Core HiSilicon Kirin 960 processor, 6GB RAM, 128GB internal storage and a 4,000mAh battery. The device runs on Android 7.0 Nougat with EMUI 5.0 skinned on top.

Coming to the camera department, the Honor 8 Pro features a dual 12MP camera setup. It comes with Phase detection and Laser autofocus and dual LED flash. On the front, the device sports an 8MP secondary camera with f/2.0 aperture.